


Crash and Burn

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville
Genre: Age Swap, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied Character Death, Prequel, Rescue, Season/Series 01, Shock, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kal-El was six when his world ended. Kal-El was nine when the Earth became his world. Clark was nine when he found and lost his first duty. And Clark was twenty-one when his found his responsibility once again, hanging from a Scarecrow in a field.</p><p>An age-swap AU. When the first meteor shower hits Smallville, Lex is three and Kal-El is nine. This is my try at a backstory for Nicnac's excellent fic, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/597003">"i think that possibly maybe i'm falling for you"</a> (you should read her fic first :) This one follows events from just before Krypton explodes, up through when Lex and Clark meet again a little more than a decade later, with a few time-skips in-between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i think that possibly maybe i'm falling for you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/597003) by [Nicnac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac). 



> Title: Crash and Burn  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark, Lex  
> Rating: PG  
> Spoilers: general-ish for the series; this is an age-swap-from-the-beginning AU, spoilers for Nicnac's fic (see author's note)  
> Word count: ???  
> Summary: Kal-El was six when his world ended. Kal-El was nine when the Earth became his world. Clark was nine when he found and lost his first duty. And Clark was twenty-one when his found his responsibility once again, hanging from a Scarecrow in a field.
> 
> An age-swap AU. When the first meteor shower hits Smallville, Lex is three and Kal-El is nine. This is my try at a backstory for Nicnac's excellent fic, ["i think that possibly maybe i'm falling for you"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/597003) (you should read her fic first :) This one follows events from just before Krypton explodes, up through when Lex and Clark meet again a little more than a decade later, with a few time-skips in-between.  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: A Nicnac bounce of her lovely piece, ["i think that possibly maybe i'm falling for you"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/597003). This is my conception of a possible backstory/prequel for it. I tried to get the histories as close as possible, considering, but apologies if I screwed the pooch on that one a bit ^_^;; ...For an AU, I mean. Er... *headdesk*

Kal-El was six when his world ended.

He'd known it was coming for some time. He had grown up to nothing but war, and did not know a time without it. Kara used to talk about it sometimes -- what it was like _before_. She came over to watch him sometimes for his mother Lara and father Jor, as they were both very busy people with very difficult endeavors to undertake. Lara had been trying to find a final solution to the war; Jor, a peaceful one... or at least one with minimal casualties.

General Zod was the problem. He hated everyone. Kal wasn't sure why. No-one would tell him.

His father had tried to explain once, Kal supposed, but it hadn't made sense at all -- if Zod was mad and hurt because his son had died, wouldn't hurting and killing other people's sons just make more people feel the way he did? Why would he want that, if he wished he didn't feel that way?

...And Zor, Jor's brother, and Kal's uncle, had been a problem, too. Apparently Zor had been working with Dru-Zod, helping him with the mines as the mad General had taken over each one.

A lot of things didn't make sense to Kal. But he supposed that was perhaps because he was still very young. Kara didn't seem to understand, either, and she was _much_ older than he. ...But maybe age wasn't the reason for that, either, because he'd sometimes woken up when his father had come back from a session with the Ruling Council, and it sounded like maybe they didn't understand it, either.

Then Zod had finally been captured and sentenced to the Phantom Zone, and Zor's role in the whole mess found out. Zor had been locked in one of the Kandorian mining facilities -- or locked himself into, Kal wasn't exactly sure which -- but everyone was awaiting his inevitable capture and punishment. Kal had worried about Kara -- he hadn't seen her for weeks -- so when a message came in for his mother from his older cousin, he peeked around the door and tried to listen in.

He'd been more than a little scared when he heard about his uncle convincing BrainIAC to ignite Krypton's core. His father had been splitting his time between trying to stop the mining so that Krypton's core wouldn't become unstable, and winning the war -- they were sort of almost the same thing. The mines were supplying the material for Zod's armies... and those of the Council as well. Neither would stop the mining while the war was on -- it would only escalate. And by fighting the war to retake those very same mines, Jor could decide to limit production as they gained ground.

The reason why they had needed to stop mining was a big secret that Kal had overheard Jor tell Lara, and that he had had to promise on the Great Rao himself never to tell anyone who was not family -- they had had to stop mining because Krypton would explode if they didn't. There had already been groundquakes and tremors, and that had been scary enough. What had been even scarier had been the Council's edict that Jor not tell anyone why they were fighting so desperately over control of the mines. The Council had made Jor promise not to tell anyone about the unstable core either, and then destroyed the offworld portals to other planets. They had said they had done it to stop Zor from escaping punishment, but if Zor was stuck in a Kandorian mine, Kal couldn't understand why the Council would think he'd be able to get to a portal -- there just weren't any there. Was there maybe some other Zor that they didn't want escaping?

If they'd still had the portals, maybe more people would have survived. Maybe the Council had wanted everybody to die as much as Zod had. Kal really didn't understand anything.

The only thing he _had_ understood for sure was that something had happened to Kara, that even after Lara told his father what Zor had been planning that his father hadn't been able to stop him, and that everybody was going to die.

"No, Kal," his mother had told him gently, pulling him in for a hug. "Not everyone. Not you."

"Not me?" Kal had said, confused.

That was when his father and mother had shown him the spaceship.

"No," Kal had said, hugging his mother in fear, for he mght be small and young, but he had known what that had meant.

It was too small for three. It was too small for two.

It would barely fit one.

"Kal, you must," his mother told him gently.

"Be brave, my son," his father said.

"No!" said Kal, hugging his mother even tighter. He didn't want to be brave. All those brave soldiers did their duty, and died, and were never, ever happy. If Kal was going to die-- "I don't want to die alone!"

"My son, you will not die," his father told him, crouching down on a level with him. "You will go to Earth, where you will be safe. The sun there will make you strong, and fast. No-one will be able to hurt you there."

"Not unless you let them," his mother said softly, stroking his hair.

Kal couldn't think of any reason why he'd _let_ someone hurt him, if he didn't have to.

"Jor-El," BrainIAC intoned. "Your assistance, please."

Jor frowned and looked up. Kal didn't understand what was wrong, because his father had created BrainIAC to help him with the war, and other things. He'd never seemed displeased with him before.

"I don't want to be alone," he told his mother as his father stood.

"You won't be," his mother said, "Look," and pulled out a small colored square. It looked a little like a two-dimensional vid-image, only motionless.

"These are the humans you should seek," Lara told him, as he carefully took the small oddly-flexible square from her hands. "The man is the son of Hiram Kent, who your father once met. He helped Jor once, and then told him to seek him out, if ever again should he require assistance."

Kal nodded once, seriously. It made sense. Once you helped someone, you helped them again, and again, and again. This was because you could help, and if you could help someone, then you should help them, and keep doing so. It was a responsibility of the mighty to the less-so: a teaching of Rao. It had always resonated inside him like a bell, from the very first time his mother had told him of it, and every time he had ever been reminded of it since.

"It looks as though Kara will be joining you," Jor said from the control-crystal bank, though he didn't sound happy.

Kal and Lara both looked up at him. "What is wrong, my husband?" Kal's mother said anxiously.

"The hyperspace module on board the craft appears incomplete or damaged, possibly both," BrainIAC informed them. "The suspended animation matrix is fully-functional, but will not remain so for the newly calculated time to destination."

"Earth is the destination?" Lara asked.

"Yes," said BrainIAC.

"Jor?" Lara asked as he began to shift crystals and touch upon lighted symbols in the air-interface.

"I cannot access her ship controls from here," Jor said. "That fool, spending more time on the matrix than the hyperspace drive!"

He abruptly stopped his work.

"Jor?" Lara asked.

There was a silence only punctuated by the rumble of the ground beneath their feet.

"Father?" Kal asked, worried about his cousin.

Jor grimaced as he turned to look at the two of them. Then he sighed.

"Get in the ship, Kal," he said.

"Father!" Kal said, both angry and frightened. He had to help! He just -- had to!

"I must work quickly and without interruption," Jor told him briskly, turning away and beginning a feverish work pace.

Kal's eyes widened, and then he saw his mother's quick smile -- so it must be all right.

"Quickly now, Kal," his mother said, and she helped him up into the ship.

Kal settled in with a slight grimace -- it was a bit small for him, but he carefully folded himself in. All he could think was that it was going to be a good thing that he would be asleep for most of the trip.

"Oh, my beautiful boy," Lara said sadly, caressing his face.

Lara smiled, leaned over him and kissed him on his brow, then stepped away.

Jor-El stepped up to the ship. He did not look up at Kal as he inserted the Heart into the ship and made a few additional modifications, both acting and talking quickly. "I have reprogrammed this as best I can, so quickly. This will cause your craft to overtake Kara's route, but not by so much. If the hyperspace drive activates close enough to her craft, then both you and she will enter through the tear in space at the same time, and her craft will be borne along behind yours. You will both arrive at Earth together," he said, and Kal's heart sang with no small relief.

"Jor, my broken self approaches," BrainIAC warned, and Kal started, confused.

His father cursed softly, then looked up at Kal gravely, and Kal stilled. "This will work, and you will be safe, regardless of when you activate it... but it will not be this way for Kara," his father told him, and his tone brooked no argument. "I do not have enough time to program it to calculate how to activate the drive so that both of your ships are certain to travel into the rift. -- _You_ will need to tell the ship when to make the jump, understand?" he told Kal. "You have a chance to save her, but only a chance," he said. "I have copied my brainwave patterns into the ship, and will guide you in this way."

"Father--" Kal said, reaching for him.

But his father stepped away. "There is no more time. You must go now!"

The ship closed abruptly around him, and Kal gasped. --So soon!

The ship began to activate around him, and Kal shivered. Then he heard a loud clang and felt more than heard something hit the side of the ship.

"What is happening?!" Kal cried out.

"Danger," he heard BrainIAC say, and then there was motion.

"Tell me!" Kal demanded, in the tone of all scared six-year-olds.

"BrainIAC's other, broken self attacked. Something was attached to this vessel," he heard Jor-El's voice say coldly.

"Don't do that," Kal said, shivering. "I know you're BrainIAC."

"I am Jor-El, your father," it said in his father's voice.

"No," Kal said. "You are BrainIAC, with my father's thoughts and memories. Be yourself, not him, or be no-one at all."

There was silence.

Then there was a sigh.

"I apologize, Kal-El," BrainIAC said in its' own voice. "I had thought that you would be more comforted by Jor-El's own words."

"Well, I wasn't," Kal told him. "That is Mother's responsibility, you know."

"I do," BrainIAC said.

"How is there a broken you?" Kal asked, worried and curious for BrainIAC despite his fear at everything else that had been happening, so fast. This was something new, and new strange things had always grasped his attention like a lightning rod, though only interesting things held it.

"With Zor-El's help, Dru-Zod made a copy of my basic programming, from Dax-Ur's original code, and built it into a prototype nanotech body-base," BrainIAC explained. "While the original code was acceptable for a static, crystalline system, it was not flexible or adaptive enough to be stable when given a mobile base. Highly experimental learning algorithms that Dax-Ur had not finished when he stopped his work were added, and corrupted the code. He then injected his own memory engrams into the code, and further corrupted it."

"Oh," Kal said. "That sounds... bad." He knew that Zod did bad things to people, but making a broken BrainIAC sounded... wrong. It sounded even more wrong than anything else. "You couldn't just talk to the other you?" Kal asked. "Why couldn't anyone help him?"

"No, my other me would not listen, Kal," BrainIAC told him. "His code is too corrupted, his systems isolated to only his own." BrainIAC gave another sigh, and sounded almost sad. "His code has changed, and mutated further and further. He has advanced, but also twisted. He is beyond me, now."

Kal didn't really like the sound of that.

"I will need your help," BrainIAC told him.

That wrenched Kal's young thoughts back to the present. "With Kara?" he asked, worried all over again, because if he got this wrong...

"Yes, with her, also," BrainIAC said. "But please do not fret, Kal-El, you will be able to help her."

"How can you be so sure?" Kal asked, desperately frightened that he'd make a mistake and... and Kara would end up dying, asleep, all alone, years from now, maybe longer, never reaching Earth, and not ever realizing it.

"We have time," BrainIAC said. "More time than you think."

Kal frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We had to leave Krypton at once," BrainIAC explained. "The explosion is imminent. But I have been programmed not to bring you into suspended animation until you have attempted your rescue attempt and given the order, or when I must for your own safety's sake. We need not begin the journey to Earth immediately."

"We don't?" Kal asked.

"No," BrainIAC said, and then there was another shift.

"NO!!!" Kal yelled, beating his fists futilely against the inside of the ship.

The motion stopped abruptly, and BrainIAC said, "Calm yourself."

"You calm yourself!" Kal yelled, crying. "You lied! Y-you said no hyperdrive!" He'd left Kara behind!

"Your ship is different from hers," BrainIAC explained patiently. "This ship would not survive Krypton's demise as hers will. I needed to move this ship out of range of the initial explosion, as Jor-El programmed me to. We are not so far away."

Kal's crying slowed to hiccupping gasps. "Y-you mean it?"

"Yes, Kal," BrainIAC soothed. "I would not lie to you. We will have time to save her, now."

"...Promise?"

"Yes, Kal."

Kal sighed.

Then a feeling of stubbornness stole over him.

"I want to see," he demanded.

"To... see?"

"I want to see it," Kal repeated.

There was a pause.

"As you wish," BrainIAC said, and the walls of the ship disappeared around him.

Kal startled, then relaxed. It was a little like some of the teaching programs, only with less light and more image. ...Oh, and he was also curled up in a cramped position instead of standing. He wondered how he'd manage to stay still without stretching for however long it took to get to Earth. He had never been very good at staying still for very long.

Kal-El was six when he watched his world end from orbit, as he sped away, trapped in a little spaceship with an AI who was struggling to get him to a little blue planet light-years away in the void.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*~*~*~*~*~

Kal-El was trying not to think too much about how his parents were now dead.

It was actually pretty easy -- he was too worried about Kara to focus on much else.

"Is her spaceship okay?" he asked BrainIAC.

"It is," BrainIAC told him, and Kal let out a sigh of relief. "We are also out of range of--" BrainIAC's voice stopped abruptly.

"Oh," BrainIAC said, and Kal had never heard the AI sound _surprised_ before.

"What is it?" Kal asked. "What's wrong?"

"The sun," BrainIAC said, and the activity on the panels in the ship lit up.

"Stop!" Kal commanded, because the last time the ship had done that it had shifted into hyperspace for that small jump beyond Krypton's moons. "Tell me what is going on first!"

"I--" BrainIAC stuttered for a moment, then said, "I must follow Jor-El's orders. Hyperspace jump must commence now. You are in danger."

"Why?" Kal said, feeling a trickle of fear run down his spine.

"A third rocket was sent up from the surface of the Krypton," BrainIAC.

"So?" Kal said. "We'll just rescue them, too! --You said we have time!" Kal said angrily.

Kal felt the ship shift and turn. "This rocket has no life signs aboard. It was sent into the sun."

"What?" Kal said.

"The sun-reaction is..." BrainIAC paused, as it began recomputing something. "The sun will explode."

"Get Kara," Kal demanded immediately.

"My computing resources are highly limited, Kal-El," BrainIAC informed him coldly. "I cannot determine the proper escape course for the hyperspace jump for both your ship and hers, and you are not ready to attempt such yourself."

"You can't leave!" Kal said. "You said that we had time to--!"

"The explosion of the sun was not part of Jor-El's original calculations," BrainIAC said grimly, lighting up more and more of the internal systems in its computations.

"Get. Kara." Kal repeated.

"You are not listening, Kal-El--"

"No, _you_ aren't listening!" Kal yelled. "You did a small jump before, so just do one for her, too!"

The panel flared again, even more brightly, "I cannot--"

"Not the whole big thing!" Kal tried, thinking as fast and as hard as he could. "You can do small jumps, so you can-- can try things, right?" Kal said. "You can try a bunch of times, right? If it's small," he pleaded. "You'll know if it's wrong. You can stop and go back and try again."

"There-- there is not enough time--" BrainIAC stuttered.

"I bet there is if you stop arguing with me and just do it!" Kal yelled. "How many jumps can you do?!"

"I cannot determine--"

"How! Many!"

"It. Depends."

"Try," Kal gritted out. "Try or I'll hate you _forever_ ," and then the stars went out.

The only thing he could see was the ship walls.

There was a lurch.

And a lurch.

And another lurch.

Kal started to feel sick.

It kept happening.

...It finally stopped.

"BrainIAC?" Kal asked weakly, after he was able to breath again without feeling like his internal organs were going to come out of his mouth.

"We are out of range of the sun's nova," BrainIAC reported. "Kara is with us."

Kal breathed a sigh of relief and slumped.

"There is a problem."

"...There is?" Kal asked, looking over at the panel.

"Yes," said BrainIAC.

"Tell me," Kal said after a bit.

"We are headed off-course from Earth," BrainIAC said. "Our energy stores are lower than expected, but within margin for nominal flight."

"Is her ship damaged?"

"Yes, but not any more critically than ours. Measures can be taken, should we arrive at Earth within the original timeframe."

"Okay," said Kal. Then he blinked. "Then what's wrong?"

"We are headed off-course from Earth."

"Okay, but we can jump again, right?" Kal said.

"Correct."

"And we can take Kara with us."

"Presumably."

"And we can reach Earth," Kal said.

"Assuming that your new trajectory is calculated correctly, yes."

"Okay, I... Wait, 'my'--" Kal startled. "What?"

"We did not leave the system with enough time to escape the effects of the changed solar dynamics," BrainIAC said, "now that the sun has... 'blown out'."

"But can't you compensate for those?" Kal asked.

"Yes."

"So you can get us to Earth okay, then."

"No."

"I don't understand," said Kal.

"I cannot compensate for those using the original flight path specified by Jor-El and assure our arrival at Earth," BrainIAC said.

"But..." Kal's head began to hurt. Why did this have to be so hard? He was only six! "But you said that... 'our energy stores are within margin for nominal'..." Oh. "What's 'nominal flight'?"

"Flight within normal parameters."

"Okay. What's 'not normal', then?"

"There is something attached to the external hull of this ship, back by the navigation systems," BrainIAC told him.

"Okay, what is it?"

"Unknown."

"Then how'd it get there?"

"It was attached during your parents' fight with the broken BrainIAC entity, prior to this ship's launch," BrainIAC told him.

Kal's eyes got wide. "Zod told the bad-you to put something on the ship, and you thought it was okay to just... do other stuff and leave it there?"

"I have no means to remove it," BainIAC said.

"Show me," Kal said, and the teaching interface started up again.

"EW!" Kal yelled when he saw it. "Scrape it off on something!" 

"Scrape it--?"

"On that!" Kal yelled, pointing at some rocks floating along in their same direction.

"I cannot approach those, Kal-El," BrainIAC said.

"Why not!"

"Close proximity to those asteroids for extended periods of time will cause irreparable damage to this ship."

"--But Kara's ship is right in the middle of them!" Kal said, panicking as he saw it.

"Kara's ship has stronger shielding against the radiation emanating from--"

"What radiation?"

There was a short pause.

"These are shards of Krypton's surface, from the blast," BrainIAC informed him. "The explosion filled them with multispectrum energy. For some waveforms, the natural crystal acts as a resonator. This ship cannot survive propolged exposure to certain waveforms," BrainIAC explained. "Many of these same waveforms would also have a negative effect on your physical body."

"We can't do anything?" Kal said, then realized something. "Wait, how did you get the ship so close before, if this stuff was all around Kara's ship?" Jor-El had said that the ship wasn't allowed to to anything that would mess up Kal's chances at getting away. So how had BrainIAC been able to bring Kara along? BrainIAC never listened to Kal over his father!

"This ship has the capability to neutralize some of the most destructive waveforms from the crystals," BrainIAC explained. "It is very energy-draining. I had to use this function multiple times. Our energy stores are much reduced."

Wow. Okay. No wonder BrainIAC had been calculating like mad. "So... you think we might not be able to make it to Earth, even if we weren't trying to bring Kara along?"

"...It now depends on your skill, Kal, regardless of Kara's fate," BrainIAC said.

Oh. Uh oh.

He was only six, and he knew that his father, the smartest man alive, would have had trouble coming up with a hyperspace jump trajectory on his own.

...His father was no longer alive.

Kal swallowed hard.

"How long do we have?" he asked.

"We have five years of life support on board," BrainIAC informed him. "A hyperspace jump to Earth from this distance could take anywhere from three to four years, at current system capability."

Five years minus... so he had a year, then.

A year wasn't enough, he'd only be seven. Nobody did hyperspace jump calculations when they were _seven_.

Then Kal realized something: "Can Kara help?" Kara was nineteen, and she had her own ship! Together, maybe they could--

"Kara is currently in full suspended animation," BrainIAC informed him. "She is not merely asleep; her body will not age, and her mind is in deep-cycle. Ship-to-ship communications will not wake her, and I cannot access her ship's systems."

"But--"

"You will have to do this on your own, Kal-El," BrainIAC said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Kal shivered.

He was all alone. Kal started to shake. He had to do this all by...

No. Wait. He was so _stupid_ \-- he wasn't alone!

"You're gonna help me, right?" he asked BrainIAC.

"Yes, Kal. Of course."

Kal felt a little like crying.

"You really think I can do this?"

"I know you can, son of Jor."

Kal took a deep breath in, then released it.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Then let's figure this out."

Kal squirmed about a little bit in place to try and get comfortable, when all he really wanted to do was stretch.

No, Kal-El had never been very good at staying still for very long.

Maybe he'd have to learn.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~*~*~*~

It took Kal six months.

Six months of traveling at a fraction of light-speed, really just drifting.

He almost went stir-crazy that first week, until he'd figured out that the teaching interface could go full-reality on him.

"That is not a recommended study mode, Kal-El," BrainIAC had informed him.

"I don't care," Kal had said. "I know I won't _really_ be able to move around and stuff, but I need to at least feel like I can!"

The first time had been kind of a shock.

"Where are we?" Kal-El had exclaimed, wide-eyed at all the blues and greens.

"This is what Earth looks like," BrainIAC had told him.

Kal turned in place, and then...

"AH!" Kal had yelled, pointing.

BrainIAC had frowned at him.

"You have a body!" Kal had told him, staring agape.

"I do not," BrainIAC had said.

Kal had snorted. "You _look_ like you have a body," he had said, crossing his arms and staring up at the tall, adult Kryptonian-looking BrainIAC.

"I do not have a body," BrainIAC had repeated.

Kal had thought for a bit.

"...You're totally jealous of the other you, aren't you?" Kal had said. The whole 'advanced beyond him' thing had been a big clue.

"I am not jealous," BrainIAC said.

"You so are!" Kal had said, "You are so jealous, and you want a body." Then he'd started to grin.

"What is so amusing?" BrainIAC had said.

"You're my BrainIAC," Kal had said.

"I am the Brain Interactive Console," BrainIAC had said. "I serve _all_ Kryptonians. I am not merely _yours_."

"No, you're _my_ BrainIAC," Kal said. "You're the one who gets irritated with me and stuff, sometimes. You so are!" BrainIAC had never talked like that to him when they were outside his parents' living quarters, after all. He'd always been kind of glad he hadn't much. Outside was dangerous.

"...I will admit that I may have transferred to the ship my unique set of interaction algorithms that I optimized for conversing with you."

Kal had just grinned.

"You should be concentrating on your studies, Kal-El," BrainIAC informed him with a _look_ that Kal now got to see go along with his voice.

Kal had just grinned some more.

Kal had gotten used to it quickly. He had spent most of his time studying only what he needed to study to be able to understand hyperspace trajectories and quantum math, but he sometimes spent time on other things, too.

BrainIAC had taught him about Earth.

BrainIAC had once tried populating 'Earth' with other people for him, but it had just been weird, so he'd stopped.

BrainIAC had only tried to bring up Jor-El's brainwave-engrams once.

"No," Kal had said.

"I believe it might be soothing to you if you were able to converse with him--" BrainIAC said, sounding concerned.

"No!"

"Kal--"

"No," Kal had said adamantly, already feeling upset. "Last time you did that, you started sounding weird, and it wasn't him anyway."

"...His programming was intended to override my own," BrainIAC had said.

"Then _absolutely no!_ " Kal had yelled.

"Kal, it was his will. You should--"

"No! I don't care! I don't want you corrupted too!"

"Kal-El, your father programmed me. He would know how to--"

"He was rushing and stuff!" Kal had said, and at that BrainIAC had gone silent.

"I don't want you corrupted, too," Kal had said, knowing he would win. "If you get corrupted, then you might start doing bad things that won't help me get to Earth. You have to help me get to Earth."

BrainIAC had sighed.

"Your father's memory engrams include information that could be helpful to you."

"Then just access that; don't _run_ it. Ever."

"As you will, Kal-El."

After Kal had realized that meeting this human, Hiram Kent, had meant that his father had been to Earth before and stayed for a long time, he'd gotten interested in learning the language of the region which Jor-El had visited. That had gotten him interested in reading in it, not just conversing in it, and _that_ had led to their history and their stories and their _fiction_...

He'd learned a little about their really odd technology -- they used metal for conducting power, and no crystals except for something called radio! -- but it was their fiction that had captivated him.

His imagination grew.

And that was when he had started to come upon his solution.

"BrainIAC," Kal had asked one day. "What did my father mean when he said that Earth's sun would make me strong and fast, and no-one would be able to hurt me?"

_That_ had led to a really interesting but scary conversation.

It had also led to BrainIAC irradiating him with yellow sun energy, approaching and neutralizing one of the smallest asteroids, a careful scraping of the ship hull against said asteroid, a space jaunt, and a pretty wicked grab-and-toss of one Zod-created bad-BrainIAC-approved sticky-but-currently-quiescent black menace now-attached-to-a-asteroid in the direction of the nearest black hole on one very large and long-held breath and a very firmly held hand on the spacecraft wing throughout.

"Too bad we can't do that to the asteroids," Kal had said sadly, once back inside.

"Yes," BrainIAC had said.

"Don't suppose I can do that more often?" Kal had asked hopefully.

"Risking further radiation exposure, an unreplenishable loss of atmosphere, and your life itself for a short stretch is not worth the action," BrainIAC had told him firmly. "We are also out of Zod-created menaces for you to throw."

"Well, drat."

With the no-longer-a-menace-to-worry-about off of the ship, 'not nominal' suddenly became a _lot_ more nominal.

Kal had still had to replan the trajectory somewhat, but now he only had to help BrainIAC tweak the original trajectory. It was a lot easier.

Kal obsessed over the timings and trajectories for getting Kara's ship dragged along in their wake.

"I wish those stupid asteroids weren't there," he complained repeatedly. "It'd be a lot easier."

Kal cried for three days when he finally realized that there was no single route they could take that would lead Kara's ship along the entire hyperjump in their wake. Because of the meteor rocks, they couldn't get the ship close enough to hers and eventually, one way or another, her ship would diverge out of their wake enough that it would slip out of the hyperdrive rift and back into normal space.

On the fourth day, he got stubborn, and he and BrainIAC attacked the problem at all angles, refusing to give up.

In the end, they hit upon a series of small jumps that would effectively trace the original trajectory.

Jor-El's original hyperspace jump path would have taken three years, given the unforseen sun-explosion and Zod-menace problems, and Kara probably would have been left behind.

With Kal-El's new calculations, BrainIAC made it in two-and-a-half.

Kara came with.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Chapter 4

~*~*~*~*~*~

Kal-El was nine when the Earth became his world.

He woke to fire and fury.

"What?" he mumbled, his head feeling fuzzy on the inside.

He flailed weakly, and then there was brown in his vision.

Brown smelled weird.

...This was dirt.

"BrainIAC?" Kal said, levering himself up.

This was weird. This felt a lot more real than the teaching interface simulations usually did. ...And when had they ever smelled?

Kal stared as the brown... dirt?... smeared across his clothing as he sat up.

He stared around dumbly.

"BrainIAC?" Kal called, slowly getting to his feet.

Then he gasped as an asteroid fell in flame from the sky.

"...No!" he gasped, staggering upright. "BRAINIAC!!!"

Silence came from the console.

"Rrgh. Rao's teeth!" Kal cursed -- he hadn't exactly studied Earth languages in exclusion, of course.

He imediately started looking over the ship. The power cells shouldn't have been entirely drained from the flight, and if something essential had been damaged...

Well, it wouldn't be a good 'hello' to let his spacecraft explode after impact.

The second thing he noticed was that it had _not_ been a gentle landing.

The _third_ thing he noticed was that the Key in the wing was missing.

Small wonder BrainIAC wasn't responding -- the ship wouldn't work properly with the Key removed, just as without the Heart inserted it couldn't even turn on!

Kal was first and foremost angry that the Key was missing. Secondly, he was worried about when it had come out. Thirdly--

"You bastard," he muttered to himself, grabbing the ship and starting to drag it out of the 'corn' and over to a 'roadway'. "You put me to sleep right after we jumped!"

Yes, he'd been tired, and yes, he'd agreed he'd needed sleep, but he hadn't meant _that_ sleep! "I needed to be awake to try and lose the asteroids, you jerk."

Unfortunately, he knew exactly why BrainIAC hadn't woken him back up -- trying to neutralize or short-jump the asteroids away from the planet might have drained the power cells so much so that the ship might not have made it back to Earth. Jor-El's orders had taken precedence.

He flinched every time a meteor struck Earth. It was just as bad as Zod's war, only he was outside, not inside at home where it had been safe.

Not that 'home' was _safe_ anymore.

He kept dragging his ship with him, because he'd rather end up in Rao's hell than leave BrainIAC behind.

He scanned the skies for Kara's ship, but he couldn't tell one firery falling object from another.

...Until he could.

He recognized the mass of asteroids that Kara's ship had been trapped between. He saw Kara's ship go down, down, down, over the horizon, and a HUGE splash of water shortly after.

'All right," he thought. 'It could be worse.' Kara's ship would survive a fall like that, and a dunking. It might be damaged, but even if it was, it wouldn't go critical right away -- not for years. He knew Kara's ship inside and out, from prolonged conversation with BrainIAC after multiple panic attacks upon waking. He'd not actually believed that her ship would be all right among the asteroids until he'd truly _understood_ the safety features Zor-El had programmed in.

One of the main differences had been the suspended animation mode. Jor had focused on the hyperdrive and life support systems, so they had been practically flawless; Raya had been tasked with the suspended animation systems. She was good, but not that good.

Kal took a second to stop and stretch a bit. Going from a six-year-old to nine-year-old body all-at-once was weird enough, but the sunlight felt a lot different than what BrainIAC had synthesized for him, too.

He was glad that Kara hadn't had to sleep in a cramped space that had only gotten more cramped as he'd grown while asleep, or had to worry about aging during the trip.

Kal was missing two-and-a-half years that he'd thought he'd be able to spend in the teaching interface with his BrainIAC. He wasn't happy.

'But I won't be alone," he thought to himself as he picked up his ship again. He remembered that conversation with BrainIAC well.

_  
"What about Uncle J'onn?" Kal had thought to ask one day. "Was he off-planet when--?"_

_"Yes," BrainIAC had said._

_Kal had sighed in relief. "And Raya's in the Phantom Zone," he said._

_"Yes."_

_"So that's you, Kara, Raya, and J'onn who made it out alive," Kal said, thinking. "And me!"_

_"Yes."_

_That meant that, of all the people he knew, only his mom and dad had died. "So almost everyone survived!" Kal had said happily._

_BrainIAC had paused for a moment, then said, "Yes, Kal. Almost everyone."_  
  


"Ah!" Kal exclaimed, dropping his hold on the ship. There was a red 'truck' overturned on the 'roadway'!

...There was a furrow plowed right through the road behind it that looked alarmingly like a very close meteor strike.

"Oh, no," Kal breathed out, hurrying forward. It was his fault that they'd overturned!

"Hello?" he asked, crouching down near the upside-down vehicle. "Are you all right? Can you hear me?"

He heard groans from inside the truck.

Looking at the inside of the conveyance, Kal realized that it really was _not_ made to be able to be upside down at any point.

"Ah, hold on!" he said, as he saw the people struggling inside.

And with that, Kal carefully grasped onto the truck, lifted it, and carefully rotated it back upright.

He set it down, and was grateful that he'd had the chance to go through Jor-El's knowledge of yellow-sun powers with BrainIAC in the teaching interface's simulation.

"Ah," he breathed out in relief, letting go and straightening up again to peer over the top of the window.

Then he blinked as he got a good look inside and said, "Oh."

He saw his own reaction mirrored in the faces of the man and woman inside of the truck.

"...Who are you, son?" the man asked him.

"I'm Kal-El, son of Jor-El and Lara," Kal told him.

"Cal... L.?" the man said slowly. Then he seemed to shake himself as he gingerly opened the truck door and stepped down. "You all right?" he said, looking Kal up and down.

"Yes," Kal said, blinking as the woman got out too, and came around the side of the truck.

"Well," said the man. "Well." He scratched his head, then started as his wife slapped him on the arm gently. "Ah, right, I'm--"

"You're Hiram Kent's son," Kal said, blinking up at him -- at them. The people from his 'photograph' -- oh, and his mother had been here once, too, to have given that to him! "I was supposed to look for you," he said, pulling out his picture-of-a-picture, the Polaroid that his mother had snapped of a framed picture of the couple, and handing it over to the man.

There was a brief pause as the two humans digested this.

"Well, you've certainly found us," the woman said to him, smiling.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	5. Chapter 5

~*~*~*~*~*~

Before too long, Kal was in the backseat of the truck, and his ship was in the flatbed with a tarp over it.

"Can't rightly say I know about this business between your father and mine," Jonathan Kent said, "but I'll be damned if I leave a boy wandering about the countryside in the middle of this mess."

"Jonathan, language!" Martha Kent chided from the passenger's side rear seat, tugging at Kal's clothing.

"I still do not understand why I should not let anyone discover that I am not human," Kal said, enduring Martha's odd ministrations. "You cannot hurt me. Father said so."

He refused to think upon what his mother had said.

"People will treat you differently," Martha tried to explain. "They might be afraid of you, with what you can do."

"Good," said Kal. "They should be."

"What?" Martha said, looking up.

"Oh? Why's that?" Jonathan asked, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

"I am supposed to stop the wars," Kal told him. "The bad men _should_ be afraid of me."

"Who told you that?" Martha said, sounding angry.

"My father," Kal told her.

"What exactly did your father say?" Jonathan asked, frowning.

Kal opened his mouth to answer, then paused a moment.

"Well?" Jonathan prompted.

Kal frowned. "It... was in his memories. He did not have time to say it. Out loud."

"That so?"

Kal's frown deepened. "His memories were not corrupted. I ordered BrainIAC not to incorporate them, and he did not. He _will_ not."

"Who's Brainiac?" Jonathan asked.

"BrainIAC is my Brain Interactive Console," Kal explained. "He is... like one of your very smart computers. Only intelligent. And in my ship."

"Hm," said Jonathan. "Well, what was his thought, then?"

Kal recited for them: "On this third planet from the star Sol, you will be a god among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength, my son. That is where your greatness lies."

Jonathan and Martha exchanged a glance.

"Doesn't sound like much in there about 'war', son," Jonathan said.

"My father did not like death, or war," Kal told him. "He created the Phantom Zone, so that in all the twenty-eight known galaxies, death sentences for the worst of criminals no longer had to be carried out. He worked tirelessly until he defeated the enemies of Krypton's Ruling Council, led by General Zod!" What else could he have meant? Jor had stopped a war; he wanted his son to do the same here.

"There was a war on your planet?" Jonathan asked.

"Yes," Kal said. "My planet -- Krypton -- was destroyed because of it."

"Hm," said Jonathan. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Does that mean that you Krypton-people are a flawed race, too?"

"Wh-what?" Kal was startled by the thought. "I--"

"Jonathan," Martha softly chided, stroking Kal's hair.

"Ah, no!" Kal cried out, covering his head.

"Kal?" Martha said, sounding worried.

"No! I-- My mother-- she-- <my mother does that, not you!>" Kal stammered, so flustered that he slipped into Kryptonian.

"What?" Jonathan said, craning his neck back, sounding concerned.

"Oh!" Martha said, startled. "I'm sorry, I..." She gave Kal a soft smile. "Where is your mother Kal?" she asked. "Do you know where she's coming down?"

Kal went pale as it finally all hit him in a rush, now that Kara and he were safely on earth: his mother and father were dead.

Kal lost all proper Kryptonian composure and started bawling into Martha Kent's shirt.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	6. Chapter 6

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I... I am sorry," Kal told Martha in a nervous stutter, after his crying was mostly spent and he eventually attempted to extricate himself from her arms. "I do not meant to be overly emotional. It is not..." Kal felt himself starting to tear up again and bit his lip, caught himself rubbing at his eyes and stopped. "Not proper behavior. Not acceptable. I know this. I will endeavor to do better," he promised. He had always had difficulty with this.

From time to time, Jor had frowned at Kal when he did something rather un-Kryptonian and blamed his stunted development of emotional control on a lack of social interaction, but it had been dangerous for Kal to go outside, due to Jor's standing and Zod's hatred. Too many other children of prominent Council members had been kidnapped or murdered by Zod's faction, especially _sons_. With Jor's role in the war effort being key to any hope of the Council's success, Kal's safety had needed to be guaranteed. He had never left his parents' living space without being accompanied by both of his parents, and times when they were both free with time at their leisure had been few and far between. Similarly, having other age-peers visit their living space would have caused other problems, least of which would have been the screening requirements for interaction, and, far more importantly, problems of security, as Jor-El had worked on most of his war-projects in his lab-space at home. There had been no easy working solution to this dilemma, and Jor-El had been focused on other matters.

Thus, Kal had been schooled by BrainIAC at home, alone, though Lara and Kara had taken turns at explaining some subjects when he had had great difficulty with them. Kara had told him that it was not nearly the same as attending school with other group- and age-peers; she had been more excited at the prospect of his attendance at her school once the war was over than he had been. Truthfully, the outside had scared him; he knew it was dangerous, and that anyone who noticed him and learned who he was would want to accost him, for one purpose or another -- to curry favor, or gain infamy.

It was an odd thought, that he was safe here on Earth, outside, out in the open. No-one would know who he was here; not unless he told them.

...Perhaps this was what Martha had meant when she had warned him not to tell other humans he was an alien, this wanting of things of him, this concept of being 'treated differently' based on what he was. He had been treated differently on Krypton, as well, but that had been due to _who_ he was, and he had had no choice in the matter. ...Then, the difference here would be that he could _choose_ whether this was so.

"Overly... emotional?" Martha asked him quietly, and her tone had been so odd that Kal had to look up at her.

...He did not understand what her facial expression meant. It seemed... more _complicated_ than his father's frowns were, and ever had.

"Kal, are you all right?" she asked him.

"Yes," Kal said, feeling ill-at-ease, but not liable to any outbursts again anytime soon. Probably.

Martha exchanged another glance with Jonathan, then said, "Kal, we would like to help you, if we can. Is that... acceptable to you?"

"You are already helping," Kal said, blinking at her in confusion. "You have warned me of the dangers of revealing my alien origins to other humans, and you are helping me to move my ship in a less conspicuous manner as a part of this."

"And you can stay with us until this whole mess is straightened out," Jonathan said firmly.

"'Whole mess'?" Kal echoed, still confused.

" _Jonathan_ ," Martha said quietly before turning back to Kal, and it almost sounded like a warning. "Kal, how old are you?"

"Nine." The Kryptonian year was close enough to be used directly, and he didn't want to confuse her with the difference between body-age and mind-sleep.

"Do your people...?"

"Kryptonians," Kal supplied.

"Do Kryptonians usually assume that a nine-year-old is ready to take care of themselves?" Kal frowned, and Martha continued. "Were you expected to live alone? Do everything you needed yourself?"

"No," Kal said.

"Then would you mind staying with us until that is no longer the case?"

"That... seems acceptable," Kal said. "If you do not mind the intrusion." After all, once he had retrieved Kara and her ship from the water, he would no longer be alone. Nor would he be if he retrieved the key to the ship, and was able to speak with BrainIAC once more. Surely either of them would know what to do!

"Oh, no, we won't mind at all. We'll be happy to have you," Martha smiled down at him, and he had to blink back tears for a moment, because--

"You are a mother," Kal stated with certainty, staring up at her.

"Oh!" Martha exclaimed softly. "I, ah, no..." she said, glancing at Jonathan, then looking down and away.

"But... you act like one," Kal said, thinking about the touches and smiles, confused all over again. BrainIAC had told him that mothers here were very similar to those on Krypton. Had he misunderstood somehow?

"I... I've never been able to become pregnant," Martha admitted.

"Oh," said Kal.

"Martha, that's not..." Jonathan said, then trailed off. "He won't understand," he said after a bit.

"No, I understand," he told Martha. "My mother was the same way."

Martha looked shocked. "She was?"

"Yes," Kal explained. "She called me her 'miracle baby'. She never gave up." Kal looked at her gravely. "You should not give up."

"She won't; she's stubborn," Jonathan said from the front seat.

Martha smiled again.

Kal basked in it, and missed his mother fiercely.

"Well, Kal," Jonathan began, "If you're going to be staying with us awhile--"

"What do you wish of me?" Kal asked, following the thought.

...or at least he had thought he had. Now they both looked shocked. What had he said wrongly? "Kal, what are you talking about?" Martha asked, sounding worried.

"You are helping me," Kal said. "Should I not also help you in return?"

"Kal--" Martha said hurriedly, glancing over at Jonathan.

"No," Jonathan said.

"No?" Kal asked.

"No. You don't need to help us, Kal," Jonathan said authoritatively. "We're the adults. We help you, not the other way around."

Kal frowned. "But--"

"--Did you help your parents with anything?" Martha cut in gently, glancing up once again to quickly meet Jonathan's eyes in the mirror.

"I... did what they told me to do," Kal said uncertainly. But he knew that his had not been a 'normal' upbringing, due to his family's circumstances and the war. Was there something that he should have done that he had not?

"All right," Martha said. "Well, we can talk about it more when we get home, all right? Some things would be easier to explain once you see the farm."

Kal blinked at her, then slowly nodded once. He could alwaystake his ship and leave if it wasn't something he was comfortable with, after all.

"So, why don't we talk about what else _you_ might need help with, in the meantime?" Martha coaxed him.

And with that, Kal explained about the Key and BrainIAC, and Kara and her ship in the water, and Raya and J'onn.

"And what about your 'ruling strength'?" Jonathan said with an odd lilt in his tone.

"...I think that perhaps Kara would know how to do that better than I," Kal admitted. "She remembers what peace should be like. I... am not sure I would know it, or how to fight for it. I do not remember a time without war, and she knows more about the war than I do." Kal felt uneasy. "Some things, I think mother would have been upset if I had been able to find out." It had all been so _big_. Why had his father asked _him?_ ...Was it only because he had not known Kara would survive in a ship of her own, or because he trusted Kal more than Kara to achieve it?

"Is that everyone you're trying to get in contact with, Kal?" Martha asked him.

Kal nodded.

Jonathan suddenly sat a little straighter. Martha and Jonathan exchanged another long look.

"Well," said Martha, "we'll see if we can't help you figure something out."

"Get settled in at the farm first, then worry about your cousin," Jonathan said. "I think your ship-computer will keep longer than she will."

This was technically true, so Kal nodded. "Thank you."

"Of course, Kal," Martha said.

Then Jonathan said something odd under his breath and the truck came to a screeching halt.

Kal looked out the window. "I... help..." he heard a strange man plead as he wandered along, looking lost. The man was staring off at nothing, turning this way and that. He didn't really seem to be seeing anything, exactly.

Jonathan slammed the truck door open and stepped down.

The man seemed to come to attention when Jonathan touched his shoulder. "My boy, he... I need help..."

"All right," Jonathan said gruffly, walking off.

Kal struggled with the seatbelt and got it undone.

"Kal!" Martha said with alarm as he pushed himself up and over the front seat. "What are you--?!"

"I can help," Kal said, as he slid over and then off of the seat, his feet hitting dirt.

"You don't have to--"

"I can help, so I must," Kal insisted. Such were the teachings of Rao.

"Kal-- No, wait!" Martha said, pushing the seat forward and getting out in a rush. "Your clothes!"

Kal stopped to turn at look back up at her in confusion, but in a moment of looking at her he got it.

His clothes were Kryptonian, not human. Obviously so.

Kal looked down at himself and felt frustrated in the extreme. He turned and peered around the truck door, to follow after Jonathan with his gaze, if nothing else.

He was surprised when he heard a sigh and a big _thing_ of cloth fell over his shoulders.

He struggled with it for a moment before realizing that it was some heavy sort of shirt and started sliding his arms into the sleeves.

"Here," said Martha, getting out and then fastening the far-too-big-for-him ...coat, that was what it was -- she fastened it up around him. Once she was done, she crouched down in front of him and said, "Now, you be careful, all right? Don't get hurt, and remember to act human."

"I am not?" Kal asked, feeling a little worried. He'd thought he'd been blending in well so far.

"You righted our truck with your bare hands, and you speak English better than most adults," Martha warned him quietly.

"I understand," Kal said. He turned to go, then asked, "Will you also help?"

"Someone needs to stay by the truck and watch you two," Martha smiled weakly.

Kal wasn't sure he understood, but he nodded anyway.

He saw Jonathan walking carefully across the field, so Kal walked into the field as well.

He realized quickly that the plants had been flattened in a pattern. If they were looking for someone...

Kal hurried back to the truck, but at a speed that he would have moved if he had been on Krypton, not Earth.

"I need to..." Kal told Martha, gesturing at the truck, and then started trying to climb up the front grill.

It only took her a moment to understand, and then she was helping him up onto the hood.

Kal turned and looked. ...No, still not high enough. He turned and clambered up onto the roof of the truck cab, then turned in place, slowly looking around him in all directions, surveying the large building in the distance, the large wide tracks through the ground of several asteroid strikes, and a lot of flattened plant-fields until...

Kal sat down, and when Martha offered her hands up to him, Kal slid into her grasp and let her set him down.

He was careful to run at a slow speed across the field to where the two odd and off-pattern bulges in the flattened plant-spread lay.

The first and largest was a boy who looked only a little younger than Kara. He was... tied to something.

Kal didn't know what to do with him, because he wasn't supposed to be stronger than a human. Could a human break those ties? If so, then why was the boy tied up instead of free? It looked... uncomfortable.

"Jonathan!" he called, before getting up and moving to the second, much smaller bulge.

And then Kal nearly gasped in horror, because this was something he knew very well.

Kal slowly knelt.

The young boy -- not more than three years of age -- was half-covered by the plants and shivering, curled up in a little ball.

Kal hadn't known much about the war, or the world outside his family's quarters, but some things everyone had to know. Shock when a person was too close to an explosion had been one of them. What he was supposed to do if he found somebody like that had been drilled into him at a very young age.

Slowly, carefully, Kal cleared the debris away from the young child's body. It didn't really matter that it was plant matter instead of crystalline building-rubble, the same concept still applied.

Kal barely registered the presence of the strange older man hovering nearby as he tentatively reached out a hand and touched the boy's face in a light caress.

The boy's eyes cleared for just a moment, and Kal smiled down at him reassuringly, but then his eyes blinked closed and when they next opened, they were dull again.

He was shivering a little less, though. A little less tense.

"Son?" Kal heard and he glanced up.

His eyes met Jonathan's for a long moment.

Jonathan nodded once, then turned and got to work getting the teenager loose, while Kal continued his ministrations with the young, still-shaking boy.

Once the boy had relaxed somewhat, from the gentle touches -- arms and cheek only, not the back, not while the shock had him so deeply in its throes -- and accepted physical proximity after some careful maneuvering closer and closer, Kal was finally able to lift the younger boy in his arms.

_Everything will be all right,_ he tried to say without words, in the way he held the boy, because no-one could hear over the ringing in one's ears that close to an explosion. With the way the boy leaned into him and closed his eyes, Kal relaxed a little, knowing he must have gotten through.

Kal stood and slowly walked back to the truck, silently carrying the boy, as the strange man trailed behind, following like a lost soul. Jonathan quickly overtook him with the unconscious and nearly-naked teenager, strapping him into the front seat with Martha's help.

They were off and driving to a hospital soon after.

The strange man had gone into the back seat first, and Kal had had to relinquish the boy to the man's arms. Somehow, he felt jealous -- the boy was _his_ responsibility now, _he_ had found him, _he_ had saved him, not _this_ man. _This_ man had had to ask for help. What would happen the next time the boy needed help, when this man again would be unable to provide it?

But he voiced none of this concern. Instead, he sat in Martha's lap and smiled at the boy every time he hazily blinked his eyes open. It wasn't the fault of the _boy_ that the man was incompetent, after all.

It never really occurred to Kal, not even much later, that there might be some differences between humans and Kryptonans when it came to shell-shock, he'd been so sure that what he had been doing had been _right_.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	7. Chapter 7

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark was nine when he found and lost his first duty.

...Yes, he was 'Clark' now, no longer 'Kal'.

That had sort of happened by accident.

Kal had almost made a bit of a fuss when Jonathan had stopped at a large building with a lot of people rushing in and but of it and let the strange man and Kal's boy out of the truck.

...but had not opened the door to let Kal go with them.

Martha had had a strong hold on him -- for a human -- and he had been worried that he might hurt her if he was too forceful, and that would have been rude. She had kept him still long enough to murmur in his ear that the boy would be all right, while Jonathan had maneuvered the teenager out of the front seat and over to some of the people dressed in puffy blue and white clothing.

He had still almost shoved himself away to kick a hole in the side of the cab to get himself out and go after the boy when Jonathan got back in the truck and pulled away, except that Jonathan noticed his great irritation and told him succinctly, "That's a hospital, son; those folks'll take care of that boy just fine, even if his father's off his skull like that. They're used to dealing with that sort of thing."

Well, that spoke ill of that the wars were like here. Kal had started to understand why his father had mentioned it in his memories first-thing.

"When will I be able to see him?" Kal had asked as the scenery flew by.

"Tomorrow, maybe," Jonathan had said.

Kal had frowned a little sourly ...All right. He supposed it was probably too much to think that it would take human healing facilities less than a day to perform whatever primitive procedures they needed to. "How can I make sure that they will know to contact me when he is ready to leave?" he had asked.

"Contact you?" Martha had said.

"He is my boy now," Kal had said succinctly. Was it not obvious?

The truck had swerved suddenly.

"Kal, humans are not pets!" Jonathan had barked out like an animal.

Kal had frowned. "What is a 'pet'?"

Jonathan had whipped his head back at Kal rather fast, the truck had swerved again...

They had ended up parked on the side of the road and in a fervent discussion as to who, exactly, held the proper responsibility for the boy Kal had retrieved from the flattened 'corn' plants field.

...It had gone over about as well as the explanation of a pet being 'a lesser being of lower intelligence that one cares for'.

Well. Kal hadn't had much of a problem with not characterizing his boy as a 'pet' -- _clearly_ **his** boy was going to be _much_ more intelligent than any other human boy. (Kal wasn't sure about that strange man, though. _That_ man might need to be somebody's pet at some point. --Not Kal's though. _He_ didn't want the man.)

The subject of responsibility had had Kal growing more and more agitated, because these humans didn't seem to understand at all. Finally, Kal had given up and attempted to explain to the lowly humans about Rao's glory, and the teachings relevant to the situation, primarily the responsibility of the mighty to the weak, though they could not possibly understand it -- but the two adult humans had actually stopped their arguing and _listened_ to him.

They exchanged a long look, and Jonathan had cleared his throat and said gruffly, "Well..." Then he had sighed and run a hand through his hair. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to help others, son, or making sure that they're back on their feet..."

"We have similar teachings here," Martha had said gently, with a smile, hugging him close -- an easy feat, with Kal still in her lap in the backseat.

"We follow 'em, too," Jonathan had put in. "Well, some of us, anyway. Martha and I do."

This had been a bit mindblowing to Kal. --They knew the teachings of Rao?!

"Different name, maybe the same god?" Jonathan had mused absently.

Oh. Oh, that _would_ make sense, wouldn't it? ...It was also a bit comforting that Rao might have been looking over humans for quite awhile now. If Kal was a god, and his chosen people had suddenly almost all died, he'd probably feel pretty lonely. ...And, thinking on it, Kal didn't think he felt comfortable with the idea of his god having no other people to look over but him and Kara. That thought made him feel a bit nervous, always being watched...

"But," said Jonathan, "we also have an idea of who can have responsibility over someone else."

Kal nodded. "Those who cannot be responsible for themselves cannot be responsible for others."

"And only adults can have responsibility for others," Jonathan added.

That had had Kal glowering. "What does age have to do with responsibility?"

Jonathan had looked upset, but Martha had shushed him. "Kal, not all adults are responsible," she began, "but children who are still the responsibility of others... children cannot be reasonably expected to be responsible for someone else in turn. The people who are responsible for the child would ultimately have to be held as taking the responsibility upon themselves, instead of the child doing so."

"I am no-one's responsibility," Kal had said stubbornly.

"You are ours, and your cousin's," Martha had told him.

" _I_ am responsible for _my cousin_ ; she needs me," Kal had corrected them. "Age is no issue there. --And I am not yours!" Accepting help freely offered when it was not necessary was _not_ the same thing as letting oneself become another's responsibility. At all.

"Kal, your parents sent you to us for a reason," Jonathan had said, tossing an elbow over the seatback and frowning down at Kal. "It's their responsibility to... pass along their responsibility for you to someone who can take care of you, while they are unable to."

"I was not my parents' responsibility," Kal had grumbled.

"You weren't?" Martha had said, sounding shocked.

"No, I--" Kal had began, then had stopped. Was that... entirely true? Lara had never quite said so, or his father, but...

"Kal, what discussions _did_ you have with your parents about this?" Martha had asked.

"Did you have anyone who was your responsibility back home?" Jonathan had added, looking at him oddly.

"I... talked with my mother about it somewhat," Kal had said, recollecting those discussions. "They were about... her responsibilities to others -- her and my father," Kal had explained. He had frowned up at Jonathan. "Everyone I knew... 'back home' was responsible. They did not need me."

"I hardly think that's true," Martha had murmured, hugging him lightly, but Kal had only been able to shake his head and look away. Things would have been much easier for his parents if he had not been around -- of that, he was sure. He had taken a great deal of time away from their war-work that could have been otherwise spent. They had both been _very_ busy.

Jonathan had just sighed and looked almost sad. "Look, son," he had said. "You're on Earth now, and for better or worse, no-one will recognize your... 'responsibility' until you're at least eighteen, maybe twenty-one. That's when a body's legally considered an adult and able to make decisions for themselves."

"But I'm not human," Kal had pointed out, crossing his arms.

"No, but if you're going to get along--" Jonathan had said.

"Maybe I don't _want_ to get along," Kal had said belligerently.

"Kal--" Jonathan had started.

"Kal," Martha had interrupted, giving Jonathan a quelling look. "You can decide that, if that's what you really want, but if you go around telling people you're not human... and convincing them of it, well..." she had suddenly looked grim. "You won't be able to change your mind and take it back later. Once people know you're an alien, you won't be able to get them to treat you like you're a human anymore -- you'll have lost that choice. But if you act like a human now, you can always change your mind and decide to let people know you're a... Kryptonian later. Do you understand?"

Kal had sat there and stewed for awhile, but her logic had had merit.

"I don't like this," he had told them.

For some reason, they had both relaxed at his admission. "Didn't think you would, son," Jonathan had said. "But sometimes the right things are the hard things."

"I don't see why that should be so," Kal had muttered to himself.

"Mm," Martha had said sympathetically.

'And he's still my boy,' Kal had thought belligerently.

"Jonathan," they all heard, and three heads had whipped around to the man standing by the driver's side door. "There a problem here?"

"Ethan," Jonathan had said almost warily, and Kal had felt Martha tense.

"Oh, Ethan!" Martha had burbled. "Hello!"

'Ethan' had nodded to Martha. "Martha." He had turned to Jonathan and said, "Saw your truck stopped and wondered if anything was wrong." Then he had gotten to staring directly at Kal. "Who's this then?"

"This is Clark!" Martha had said in a rush. "He's staying with us for awhile."

'Clark?' Kal had thought, looking up at Martha.

"Is he now," Ethan had said, not taking his eyes off of Kal, and Kal hadn't much liked the man's tone. He'd almost opened his mouth to protest--

...then had closed it again when he remembered Martha's warning about his non-human, too-adult speech.

Right. So Martha had been trying to warn him to be, not a Kryptonian Kal, but a human 'Clark'. A child without any responsibilities, being taken care of as someone else's responsibility.

Kal-- no, 'Clark'-- had taken in a shaky deep breath, then had let it out.

...His deciding to try and be 'human' for the near-term didn't do much; this 'Ethan' wasn't going away.

"Where did you say he's from?" Ethan asked, and Kal-- Clark tensed. He suddenly recognized the man's clothing -- a regional law enforcement official. Humans were not supposed to lie to them.

"Jonathan's side of the family," Martha supplied. "Distant relatives."

'That wasn't true,' Kal thought with some worry.

"Oh?" Ethan said. "Where are his parents?"

Ka-- Clark didn't much like how the man was looking at him, but talking to Jonathan and Martha.

"They..." Jonathan began, glancing back at Martha.

"He was separated from his cousin Kara and his uncle Jon in the meteor strike--" Martha began.

"--not me, a different uncle--" Jonathan put in, and that just confused Clark, because who would confuse a J'onn for a Jonathan?"

"Where are your parents, Clark?" Ethan asked, cutting Martha off, and K--Clark decided that maybe he'd liked it better when he wasn't being addressed directly, after all.

"He's shy to strangers," Martha said hurriedly, "and he doesn't like to talk about--"

"They are dead," Kal told Ethan flatly, looking the man right in the eye.

There was silence for a bit.

"How did they die?" Ethan asked, eyebrows raising.

"In an explosion," he said without elaboration. He left out how the broken BrainIAC might have killed them before that.

"Hm," said Ethan, frowning.

He studied Kal for a moment, then turned to Jonathan and said, "Mind if I talk to they boy alone for a moment?"

Martha made protesting noises, but Jonathan grimaced and acquiesed.

Kal -- trying to be 'Clark' -- clambered down out of the truck and away several paces with Ethan. He was glad he was still wearing the coat.

Ethan crouched down in front of him, and they stared for awhile at each other.

"So, it's just you and me, all right?" the man told him. "There anything you want me to know?"

Kal-- _Clark_ glanced back at the truck.

"Don't worry about them," Ethan said. "You don't have to go anywhere with them if you don't want to."

K-- Clark turned back to Ethan with a frown, Of course he knew that. Why state the obvious?

"You don't have to be afraid," Ethan added, like he was trying to be comforting, except he wasn't a mother so it wasn't very pleasant.

Neither were the words themselves pleasant. Kal's frown deepened. He wasn't afraid. ...Should 'Clark' be?

Ethan sighed. "Where are your parents?"

"They're dead."

"Well, how did you come to be with the Kents, then?"

"I found them."

Ethan seemed stumped by this for a moment.

"My parents wanted me to find them," Kal elaborated, hoping that that seemed like a Clark thing to do.

"They did?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to be with the Kents?"

"Yes," though that wasn't the whole truth, so he added, "Until I find my cousin."

"And your uncle?"

"J'onn will find us."

"You sure you're all right?"

"...No," Kal admitted, because he wasn't supposed to lie to law enforcement officials if he was supposed to be a human.

Ethan's eyebrows raised again, "What's wrong?"

Kal felt irritated. "My cousin is stuck where she is, I don't know where my uncle is, and my parents are dead." He left BrainIAC out, because he didn't think even Kara would understand that one, and humans didn't have BrainIAC's, anyway. He was supposed to pretend to be human.

"You don't seem very shaken up over it," Ethan commented.

"Should I be?" Kal asked, remaining outwardly calm. It wasn't as though he couldn't possess proper composure when he really needed--

Oh, no. Were humans different somehow?

His mind began to race.

"When did they die?" Ethan asked, and _that_ made Kal angry.

"Three years ago. Am I in trouble because I have not _cried_ enough in front of you for your satisfaction?" Kal spat out, crossing his arms and glaring.

Ethan blinked and rocked back on his heels slightly. "No, not at all," he said cooly.

There was a short pause.

Then Ethan said, "If your parents died three years ago, then why are you only here now?"

"It was a long trip," Kal told him. "There were also problems that caused delays," he added, thinking of Kara and the Zod-menace.

" _Three years_ worth?"

"Yes." And if he hadn't discussed those unforseen difficulties with Jonathan and Martha yet, let alone Kara, then there was no reason whatsoever to elaborate further with _this_ man.

They stared at each other for awhile.

"Where did you say you were from, again?" Ethan asked.

"I didn't," Kal bit out.

Ethan's eyes narrowed.

"Can I get back in the truck, now?" Kal asked angrily.

"Son--" Ethan started, his jaw slightly clenched.

...but enough was enough. It was all right when Jonathan did it, because even though Kal knew the human connotation for the word, it didn't really sound or feel the same as when his father had (rarely) said it. When Ethan, on the other hand, said it, it gave him an internal sensation not unlike crystal grating on crystal in a jagged slot that did not fit.

"My name is _Clark_ ," Kal -- Clark informed him coldly, in the manner in which Jor-El usually politely told some of the more grating Council members that they would best be served going off to kiss Rao's posterior, because they certainly wouldn't be getting anywhere with _him_. "My name is Clark, and I am getting back in Jonathan's truck and going home with Jonathan and Martha now."

And then Clark turned and did just that.

He was very happy when Martha scooped him back up into her lap without even a word.

...He was not happy to see Ethan approach Jonathan's window again.

But somehow, Ethan's composure looked very different now.

And, when all was said and done, all the man did was say, "Sorry about that, Jon, just had to be sure. Been a lot of craziness in town, what with the meteors raining down and all. Some people've just gone a bit loco."

"I understand," Jonathan said, and when Ethan waved them off, Jonathan started up the truck and pulled away.

"That was unpleasant," Clark said.

"Ethan's an old friend," Jonathan said. "He was just doing his job. It could've been much worse."

"How?"

"Well, he could've asked to look under the tarp in the back."

Kal grimaced.

There was silence for awhile as Jonathan drove.

Then Clark thought to ask Martha, "Is 'Kal' not a human name?"

"Ah, oh..." Martha said, and her cheeks turned a little pink. "I, ah... panicked a little bit. Cal is a human name," Martha told him, "but it's usually short for Calvin--"

"I like 'Clark' better."

Martha smiled, not offended at the interruption. "--and I was a little worried about... well, you had said there was a war," Martha explained. "I could see your cousin being all right for now, off underwater and safely away like you've said, and you did mention that your Uncle Jon was an... policeman who helped your father lock away dangerous criminals--"

"The best intergalactic bounty hunter in the twenty-eight known galaxies," Kal said proudly.

"Mm," Martha agreed. "So I would expect that he could take care of himself."

"Yes."

"But if someone else from your planet on the other side of the war came looking for you... Well, it might be better if you made it more difficult to find you by not using a name they would know."

Kal's eyes widened. He really had not thought of that. His first instinct was to deny even the possibility of such a thing, since BrainIAC had not seen any other rocket launched from the surface, but... could there have been more than one rocket? Could some rocket have been made that could not be seen? ...Was it possible that Zod or Zor had sent other Kryptonians through the portals to Earth or other planets _before_ the entire system had been shut down?

"I see," Kal said seriously. "That... may have been wise." He looked up at Martha. "J'onn would have no difficulty in finding me, in taking a different name, because he and Jor were friends. My father would have told him of you, and how I was to find you. Finding you himself would not be difficult for him to do. Others, however, would not know where to look." He paused. "Though... what of this other 'Clark'? You humans do have computers and records. How long will it be before I am known not to be this relative of Jonathan's?"

Martha gave him a wavering smile.

"I don't have any relatives named Clark," Jonathan told him grimly. "I've got some family in Minnesota who are distant blood relatives," Jonathan said, "but..." He grimaced. "If we say you're from there, it could buy us some time, but there aren't any papers to back that up." He glanced back at them in the rearview mirror. "No birth certificate, no school records, no medical or immunization records..."

"No social security number," Martha murmured, her eyes distant and worried.

"I would not have school records on Krypton," Kal said slowly. "I was schooled at home. BrainIAC taught me, and sometimes mother and Kara helped, but I could only learn from books and notes and..." Kal sighed in frustration. "I took no formal classes. Those are-- were only accessible through the computerized network in the educational centers."

Martha straightened up. "Some people are home-schooled here, too. That could work for some of it."

"Yeah, maybe, but even if I got one of my distant cousins to go along with it, that wouldn't explain why no-one in the region would know him out there. What would we tell people, that he'd an educated shut-in?" Jonathan said, sounding pained. He made a turn and pulled up to a small yellow building, bringing the truck to a stop.

"...I did not leave my parents' living quarters much," Kal tentatively offered. "That would not be a lie."

Jonathan and Martha both stared at him.

"There was a war," Kal said slowly. "It was dangerous outside." They kept staring and he resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably. "I did not go outside with them unless they both accompanied me. They were both very busy with the war."

"Hm," said Jonathan, frowning.

"How old is Kara, again?" Martha asked.

"Nineteen."

"So it might be conceivable that you could have been staying with her for some of the time," Martha said, considering carefully.

Jonathan shut down the engine and remarked, "Still doesn't help with the birth certificate or the social security number or anything."

"Do I really need such things?" Kal asked.

"Yes," Jonathan said with a sigh. "Everybody has them in this country."

"How does one obtain these things?"

"You get them when you're born," Jonathan told him. "You'd have to get fake records for yourself and Kara, and that's illegal."

"Then could Kara and I go to another country then?"

"Other countries have similar records," Jonathan told him, putting an arm over the back of the seat to look at him. "And they take kindly to unannounced visitors even less than our country does, these days."

Kal frowned.

"I'll call my father," Martha said suddenly.

Jonathan looked startled, so Kal blinked up at her.

"Martha, I don't think he'll--"

"I'll ask," she said firmly. "In person. Not over the phone."

"Jesus," Jonathan said quietly under his breath as he opened the truck door.

"You do not have to--" Kal started to say, but Martha just smiled and hugged him once as they waited for Jonathan to get the seat forward.

"It's no trouble," she said, but to Kal, it did, in fact, sound like it _would_ be a great deal of trouble.

Kal slid out of the truck first, followed by Martha.

Jonathan shut the driver's-side door, then sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Probably ought to get that ship of yours taken care of and out of sight right now, just in case."

"The storm cellar," Martha said. "It's out of the way, and we hardly ever go down there."

Kal was careful to pick up and sling his ship against his shoulder, carrying it up off of the ground so as not to leave telltale drag-marks through the dirt, and got it down into their 'storm cellar' fairly easily.

Martha followed him down and threw a tarp over it.

"There," she said. "A little less noticeable."

As they climbed out, and Jonathan closed the doors and put a chain and lock through them, Kal finally thought to ask, "What does the name 'Clark' mean?"

Martha colored slightly pink again. "It means... well, it's my maiden name."

"'Maiden name'?"

"It's my last name, from before I married Jonathan and took on his," she explained.

"Oh," Kal said. Then hs eyes grew wide as he realized. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "You gifted me with your family name?"

"Yes," Martha said.

"I am honored," Kal-now-Clark told her, and he couldn't help but smile.

Martha's eyes lit up, and she smiled right back.

And with that, the three of them entered the little 'farmhouse' and 'Clark' was treated to his first meal of human food -- it was odd, but not bad -- and a change of clothing -- into normal human clothing, that was perhaps a bit big for him still, despite Martha's 'sewing', though she said she had his measurements now and would create something better that he could wear the next day -- and, after a little excitement introducing him to what they called ordinary human devices around their house, he was led to a small bedroom and fell soundly asleep.

The next day, after he woke, Martha did in fact have well-fitting human articles of clothing ready for him to wear, and they were amenable -- after a breakfast meal -- to take him to the hospital to hear word of the medical state of his boy, provided that Kal _not_ become overbearingly responsible about him.

...It was a good thing that they had gotten that last promise out of him, because when they got there and he was able to find someone who could identify the boy that they'd brought in -- Lex Luthor -- and had then found out that the boy had been transferred to another hospital -- _much_ farther away -- called Metropolis General, on the orders of the boy's father -- who incidentally had been the strange man, who in Kal's opinion had absolutely _no_ right to any sort of responsible decision for _his_ boy because the man was clearly _beyond_ incompetent -- he'd become angry beyond the ability to form coherent words.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something a little different...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Jonathan sighed as he finished baling hay in the barn -- to the tune of Kal's... well, Clark's mutterings, which he hoped were in English and not Kryptonese or whatever, though he'd let the other 'hands off so they could take care of their own business after the meteor strike, the farm being one of the few Smallville properties not hit too hard from the 'shower from the sound of the chatter in-town -- and walked over to the engine hooks, where Clark was sitting on the floor next to a bench.

He stripped off his work gloves, tossed them on the bench, then squatted down in front of the alien boy and sighed.

"Clark," he said, "this really was something Martha had to do alone. She'll be back later tonight." Martha had taken the truck to go see her father that afternoon about forging paperwork for Clark and, eventually, Kara. Frankly, Jonathan was worried that her stick-up-the-butt father would turn her over to the police -- he was about as clean as any lawyer could come, these days, and twice as cold.

"Her father is in Metropolis," Clark said, glaring up at Jonathan.

"Well, yes," Jonathan agreed.

"Metropolis General is in Metropolis." It wasn't exactly a question, and Clark's glare got worse.

Ah, hell. And here he'd thought Martha's absence was what had been troubling the boy. "If you'd gone with--"

"I would have been able to--"

"-- **not** see 'your boy' and run into no end of frustration," Jonathan finished, shaking his head. "I've heard about the Luthors. Wealthy bunch. Here in Smallville, you might have been able to talk a nurse into letting you visit. There? They wouldn't let you near him, no matter who you were or what you wanted."

The boy frowned. Jonathan almost would have called it a pout, if not for the murderous anger he was keeping tamped down. It was fairly obvious from the way he was sitting: knees up to his chest, arms around them, steady glare... and fists clenched so tightly the knuckles were white. ...Maybe a righteous sulk. 'Sulk' maybe seemed the right sort of word for an alien boy who was apparently supposed to grow up to take over the world through wars to stop wars -- craziest notion he'd ever heard; the second world war had been a pretty good example of _that_ not working out, to anybody with half a brain -- or, at least, for one who could flip a truck without a thought, claim a human boy as his not-a-pet responsibility with perfect seriousness, and tell off Ethan like a pro. He hadn't been able to hear either of them from the truck when Ethan had been grilling him, but --God almighty, the look on Ethan's face at the boy's backtalk...!

Jonathan shook his head to get it out of the clouds, then took in a breath to try and talk a little sense into the boy unnaturally strong sense of what was 'his', when he heard an unfamiliar engine approaching down the drive.

"Hm," Jonathan said, frowning.

Clark heard it, too. The boy glanced over at the closed sliding barn doors, then looked up at him, and Jonathan pushed off his knees to his feet, telling Clark, "Wait here," knowing full well in 20-20 retrospect as he walked his way to the barn door that that had probably been the most surefire way to have the boy getting up and following him over, and mentally kicking himself for it...

...at least, he would have been if Clark had been human, or anything like Jon himself at that age. But when he looked over his shoulder at the boy, he saw that Kal-El had just stayed seated where he was and was watching him go.

'That doesn't bode well," Jonathan thought. Yeah, it might seem a little counterproductive to most that he felt he urgently needed to try and instill some rebellion in the boy, but despite the fire in Kal -- which he certainly had enough of already, he didn't need any more of _that_ , at least -- Kal folded under too easily, doing what he was told with little complaint, even when he didn't seem to fully understand the meaning of the logic behind it. That might be fine with him and Martha, who had his best interests in mind, but the minute Kal encountered someone who wasn't... Well, that was just a nightmare waiting to happen.

Sure, he'd argued with the boy more than he'd ever want to with anyone else, but it still ended up less than he 'd have liked to with Kal himself -- the boy was clearly very intelligent, enough to keep even Martha on her toes. He certainly seemed to follow logical thought as well as any adult, maybe even moreso. But the boy had almost no curiosity -- he asked questions when he didn't recognize an English word or phrase, and he asked questions for clarification at times... but only up to a point. He hadn't yet taken the initiative. He understood what he was told but it was as though things were just _missing_ that... well, he understood what was _said_ , but didn't _understand_ what was meant, really. Not what was underneath. Not the ideas, or the _why_ of hardly any of it. The kid really was alien.

And, as far as Jonathan had been able to tell, he stopped asking questions once you talked at him enough, and, shortly after that, he gave in. For an alien kid who could flip trucks and thought his dead father wanted him to take over the planet, that was... dangerous. If he ever ran into someone who offered to _help_ him do just that, he could be led around like a puppet on a string, dancing to someone else's tune and _used_ like...

Well. Jonathan wasn't about to let that happen.

...Then again, maybe he wasn't giving the kid enough credit. He might just be being cautious, or following his parents instructions on what he'd been supposed to do after finding him and Martha. --He'd certainly told off Ethan, right enough, after all, though whether that was on accident or purpose, Jonathan had no idea. He'd have to go ask after Ethan later, maybe over a beer or two. Jonathan hadn't picked up on Kal's parents being _dead_ before Kal had spoken it outright, but from the look on Martha's face she'd already figured it out earlier, somehow. If Kal had told Ethan something that he hadn't told the two of them yet, well... Jonathan needed to know it.

Figuring out how to fix Kal's lack of understanding was going to be a problem. So was the idea of trying to poke him into becoming more curious and rebellious, without losing his obedience in this 'no taking over the planet' business. The fact that Kal-- Clark -- knew the language kept tripping him up; most folks he knew didn't talk like that unless they knew their own minds, and most others. And, for better or for worse, Clark didn't seem alien enough that it was easy to remember that there were a lot of things that he probably didn't know or understand about how things worked here on Earth.

'Probably doesn't help that he didn't seem to much understand what was happening at his home, either,' Jonathan thought with a frown as he slid open one of the barn doors. Was his cousin Kara like this as well? Or would she be even more different than Kal? Was it only Kal who was like this? He himself seemed to realize that his 'shut-in' upbringing had not been normal...

An even stranger question came to him: 'Am I actually planning on harboring a pair of nine- and nineteen-year-old alien war fugitives on my property, who might be planning to take over the world?'

Then Jonathan shook his head. That boy had a tendency to unground him like nothing going. He needed to focus a bit more on what was right in front of him.

Jonathan looked out of the barn and stared at the limosuine parked in his driveway.

...Right.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	9. Chapter 9

~*~*~*~*~*~

Jonathan stared at the limousine parked in front of his house.

Then he frowned as he saw the driver exit the vehicle front and open the door for the passenger in the back.

Lionel Luthor.

...Great.

Jonathan sighed as the man slid out, straightened, got his bearings, then gave a rueful-looking smile and walked over to him.

Jonathan stifled a sigh. So, what, this farmer was going to be rubbing shoulders with millionaires, now? Really, was it so much to ask for his life to be simple again?

...Considering the presence of the alien he'd already lied for and half-adopted who was sitting behind him on the floor of his barn: well, probably, yeah.

"Hello, Mr. Kent--" Lionel said, putting out a hand.

Jonathan minded his manners and shook his hand, gave him a smile, half-hearted as it felt. "Mr. Luthor."

"Ah. You know me?" Lionel said.

"Besides yesterday at the field?" Jonathan smiled slightly as the man covered a wince. "Heard of you, a bit. Not much. Just that you've been talking with the Ross boys about their factory. Wouldn't've known to put the face to the name, if Clark hadn't... er..." oh, what the hell, " _demanded_ to check up on your son, to see if he was doing all right."

"I had him flown in to Metropolis General."

"We heard," Jonathan said with a self-deprecating smile, not letting himself glance back at Clark. "Is he doing any better?"

"Yes, much. His mother is with him, now."

'Wonderful, so why aren't you?' -- but Jonathan squelched the thought, beyond rude. For all he knew, the wife might've ordered the man out, him being a worrying sort, or...

...

...Well, it _could_ be true.

Hell, he didn't know the man. He shouldn't judge.

"How're you holding up?" Jonathan asked instead. "You all right?"

The earlier wince became almost a cringe, and the man's jaw grew tight.

"Ah, well..." he said. "I'm fine." Then he took a breath and said, with candor, and no little humility, "I appreciate your help with my son."

'Damn,' Jonathan thought. 'Hit a sore spot.' He should've known better -- a man like that could get prideful, and if Jonathan had fallen apart like that... Shit, Lionel was taking it better than Jonathan would've.

"Look," Jonathan said, "It wasn't any big thing. We were just driving by at the right time. You probably got caught in the blast when it hit; it've rattled my brains, too," he sympathised.

"No, but..." Lionel shook his head. "It was a 'big thing'. It was very important to me. Not many people would have done what you did," Lionel told him, and Jonathan tried not to feel too big from it.

"Ah, well. No harm in it, as long as you're both doing all right," Jonathan said, clapping a friendly hand to the man's shoulder.

"I really do think you're making too little of what do did for me and my family," Lionel said. "And I won't forget it." He paused a moment, then added, "If you ever need anything, anything at all..."

Jonathan blinked. He was caught up for a moment in asking for help with Clark's paperwork... but, well, Martha was on that already, and she'd half-kill him for not trusting her. ...Jesus, maybe ask for Lionel to help the Ross boys with the plant, if he could? But the plant was going half-under, that wouldn't be fair for anyone, to put that sort of pressure on an outsider, especially. --Not to mention how rude it would be to just ask for a favor outright, right as it was offered, and -- lord, what in the hell was he thinking!

"I really don't need any reward," Jonathan told him. "I couldn't ask for one." It was the safest, and right thing to do.

There was a beat of pause, and Lionel opened his mouth to, Jonathan assumed, do the polite thing and offer a second time, when they both heard something that nearly gave Jonathan a heart-attack:

"...Anything?"

'Oh god, no,' Jonathan thought with no small panic, as they both turned and looked into the barn.

"Hello?" Lionel called in, squinting.

'No, no,' Jonathan thought, but Clark stood up out of the shadows and walked forward.

"Clark, son," Jonathan said, "we don't accept rewards for doing the right thing."

But Clark wasn't listening to him. He just spared Jonathan an angry glance before focusing on Lionel with a piercing one.

"Oh, you," Lionel said, looking Clark over. "You're the one who..." He glanced up at Jonathan, then smiled down at the boy. "Of course, you helped, too. If your father doesn't want a reward, that's fine, but perhaps you might want one, for your help?"

"He's not my father," Clark said, glancing up at Jonathan again, then back to Lionel, "and you didn't say anything about a reward. You said 'anything'. Needing anything."

"Is there something you need, then?" Lionel asked, looking down at Clark inquisitively.

Jonathan held his tongue. He didn't want to, but... god, now was a hell of a time for the boy to start acting rebellious on him!

"Yes."

"Well," Lionel chuckled. "What is it then? If I can help--"

"Not help."

Lionel frowned.

"You have something of mine."

Oh, no.

"I do?"

Oh, no, no, no.

"Yes."

"And you want it... back?" Lionel said with amusement.

No, no, no.

"Yes."

No, no, no!

"Well, then, what is it?" Lionel asked with a smile.

"K--Clark," Jonathan finally gritted out, but Lionel turned to him with an indulgent smile.

"Oh, come now, let the boy ask, at least," Lionel said. "If I can give it to him, I will."

Oh, _hell._

"Well, --Clark, is it? What is it that you want?"

"Clark, _don't_ \--!"

Clark looked up at Lionel, stone-faced.

And then he said:

"Your son."

There was dead silence for a moment.

"My... son."

"Yes," Clark said, all-seriousness. "Lex Luthor. He is mine. Give him to me."

There hadn't been many times in his life that Jonathan Kent had wanted to just sink into the ground and die, but, by god, this was certainly one of them.

"CLARK!"

"It's... all right," Lionel said, waving a hand at Jonathan to cut him off. "May I?"

Jonathan grimaced, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

Not that Lionel had needed it, or even seen him do it -- he'd already started to squat down in front of Clark.

"Clark..." Lionel began slowly, drawing his name out. "You have to understand. Lex is my son. I can't just give him away."

Clark's eyes narrowed. "You are not. You are returning him."

"Clark, Lex is not yours," Lionel told him slowly, looking him straight in the eye, levelly. "Lex is mine."

For a moment, looking at Lionel in half-perspective, listening to him speak, with that strange undertone at the end, Jonathan had a surge of nausea. But the moment passed so quickly that Jonathan felt he must have half imagined it.

And then Lionel was standing up, saying, "And you cannot have him," as he brushed his pants straight.

He gave Jonathan a 'the things children say, yes?' glance, and Jonathan smiled back very, very weakly.

"Really, I would think that slavery had gone out of vogue ages ago," Lionel laughed, trying to turn Jonathan's embarrassment to a joke, instead, to cut the tension.

It almost worked.

"What is 'slavery'?" Clark asked, frowning.

That worked a little better. "A bad thing. I'll explain later. --He's been home-schooled," Jonathan told Lionel a little helplessly.

"Mm, I see," Lionel said, then turned to go.

Jonathan walked him back to his limo, with a firm look back to Clark and a sharp nod at the inside. Thank god, Clark actully listened to him and turned and walked back farther inside.

"Sorry about that," Jonathan said, heaving a sigh. "He's a bit..."

"Precocious?" Lionel offered, with a smile.

"I guess," Jonathan said, not really sure that was the right word for it. Maybe 'stubborn' or 'forceful'. He had used to be better at crosswords than this, and Clark sure was _some_ sort of puzzle, he guessed.

"Wherever did you find him?" Lionel asked lightly, stopping in place.

"Huh?"

"Well, he's not your son," Lionel said. "So, what is he doing here?"

Jonathan was taken aback. "He's... a distant relative. A nephew."

"Oh. Is he?"

Jonathan felt himself flush. "Are you implying something?"

"Oh, no," Lionel said. "I just find it very odd, for a boy to have suddenly appeared in your custody the day of the meteor shower, who seems not very acquainted with how to talk or act."

And there was something underneath what Lionel was saying, that Jonathan wasn't really getting. "We picked him up that day," Jonathan said. "Nothing strange about it, except that meteor shower."

Lionel paused, then continued. "Does the sheriff know he's here?"

Now that was just a slap in the face. "You mind speaking plainly?" Jonathan said, feeling a growing anger.

Lionel turned to face him full-on. "You seem to be trying to keep that boy away from people. I'm wondering why. I would think you might have some trouble if the wrong people found out he was here."

"The wrong people," Jonathan echoed flatly.

"Mm, yes," Lionel said, smiling the same smile as he had before, but with a flash in his eye.

"...Like the sheriff," Jonathan filled in after a pause, feeling like he'd slid sideways into some backwards reality at some point.

"Well, I'm sure that whatever you're doing here can be taken care of without him ever finding out," Lionel all-but-purred, and Jonathan suddenly felt sick all over again.

"But," Lionel continued, "I see no reason why I would be running into the town sheriff out of the blue like that."

Jonathan felt like there was ice in his veins.

"What do you want," he heard himself say, abstractly, wondering just how low the man could go.

Lionel named his price.

...Like _hell_ would Jonathan ever inflict this man upon those good people. He was _friends_ with the Ross brothers.

"You do what you need to," Jonathan told him, feeling like he was truly going to be ill.

Lionel raised an eyebrow. "You know, I do remember driving by the sheriff's office on my way here," he put out there.

"Well, then," Jonathan said slowly, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "Maybe you should stop by and have a chat with him. Get to know him, and all."

Lionel frowned at him.

"His name's Ethan. He's very friendly," Jonathan offered mildly.

Lionel suddenly got a wolfish grin, and Jonathan hid the surge of utter hatred and loathing he was feeling just then.

"Maybe I will," Lionel said.

"Maybe you should," Jonathan replied. watching Lionel turn away.

'And I certainly hope you do,' Jonathan thought. Pedophilia was a _very_ serious charge in these parts. So was kidnapping. And Ethan wouldn't put up with either of those things in his town; he was _clean_ , as clean as they come! If Luthor threw around those allegations about him and Martha and then, god help the poor bastard, actually approached Ethan with the assumption that that the sheriff was inclined to cover up or... 'indulge'... _himself_ , **well**...

'It'd serve him right.' A few days cooling his heels in a cell before being brought up on charges of slander or attempted bribery of a police officer might be a good start, for a man like _that_.

Thank god that Ethan had stopped by on the road yesterday, or Jonathan just might've worried about giving in, because they didn't have Clark's paperwork done up, yet. Ethan would give them the time to 'track things down', having known about Clark beforehand.

...But if he hadn't?

Jonathan shuddered to think.

He waited until the limo driver had gotten Luthor back into the car -- felt sorry for the man, working for _that_... -- and watched them drive off. He wanted to be sure they were really gone.

Then he turned, steeled himself, and walked back into the barn.

It occurred to Jonathan in a flash, as he thought about the way that Kal had looked up at Luthor, and talked about him before -- _he is not responsible! that boy is mine! I have a responsibility to him!_ \-- that maybe, just maybe, Clark really had known about Lionel all along.

Maybe Clark wasn't the one who should be asking more questions. Maybe it should be him.

"Clark?" Jonathan said, and the alien boy looked up from the side of the sliding door -- hidden, out of the way, but _very_ nearby.

Listening in? Or just in case... what, exactly?

Jonathan blew out a breath. He was losing sight of the ground again.

"Clark," Jonathan asked, "do you have any ideas about how you're going to..." he searched for a good word, then had it, " _discharge_ your responsibility to your cousin?"

Clark smiled up at him.

Jonathan waited, ready to listen.

And then the smile turned into a brilliant grin.

...Yeah, he was definitely going to ask more questions of his little alien from now on.

Maybe they'd _both_ learn something from it.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	10. Chapter 10

~*~*~*~*~*~

" _Martha_ ," Jonathan sighed in relief later that evening as he heard the front door go. He turned and stood up from the couch...

Oh. She was _not_ happy.

"Things didn't go well with your father?" Jonathan asked.

" **No** ," Martha bit out shortly, and Jonathan stifled a wince. He also closed his teeth on a 'told you so'.

"He going to keep quiet, at least?" Jonathan offered tentatively, as he helped her with her coat.

Martha sighed at that and deflated. "I think so."

"Well. Small things," Jonathan said, and Martha gave him a weak laugh and a quick peck on the cheek.

"At least things went better here," Martha said with assurance, then stopped and gave Jonathan a _look_ when he winced. "What happened?" she said in descending tones.

Jonathan glanced over at Clark, sitting in one of the chairs, reading a book, and sighed, running a hand through his hair. 'Well, it wasn't as though he wasn't there.'

"Tell you in a minute," Jonathan told his wife, steering her towards the couch. She huffed an indignant sigh that was half-a-laugh, and went to go inquire over what Clark was occuppying himself with.

Jonathan made her a cup of tea and, thinking it over, grabbed a few cookies from the box in the cupboards above the refridgerator for good measure.

"Uh oh," Martha said, almost teasing. "That bad?"

"Sort of," Jonathan admitted, handing them over and settling down on the couch next to her. At a raised eyebrow at Clark, Jonathan added, "He was there. Won't make much difference, and he ought to know-- _understand_ , anyway." He glanced over at Clark, who was closing his book and looking attentive. 'If he doesn't already, anyway.'

Martha settled in comfortably with her tea and cookies, and Jonathan started to recount Lionel's unwelcome visit to the farm, complete with detailed explanations of tone and meaning, and what conclusions he had drawn during the conversation and why.

Martha had given him an odd look at first, until she glanced at Clark and realized what her husband was doing. Jonathan, facing both Martha and Clark, was able to see both their reactions during his recounting. ...It began to be a little scary how many times Clark's frown surfaced, again and again, and Jonathan started adding more and more detail -- the facial expressions, the tics of body language -- until finally Clark started to seem to get only a slight perpetual 'listening' frown, rather than a 'deeply processing' one.

Dear lord, but they had some work to do with him.

Martha, on the other hand, became engrossed in what he was saying fairly quickly. She was amused at first, then grew more and more shocked as he talked, then appalled, then as mad as red hair on a hornet's nest by the time he reached the end.

Jonathan blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair, relieved that he was done, but when Martha opened her mouth and proclaimed, "How did he know Clark was Kryptonian?!?" it left him stammering.

"Wh-What??" Jonathan said. "Why would you--" And then he got it. "Son of a--" he groaned, falling back into the couch. "The day of the meteor shower," he stated darkly as he finally placed what that snake had been hinting at under his words.

"Jonathan!"

"Well, how would he know about it, anyway?" Jonathan said. "A body can't tell just by looking at him."

"So, he would have had to know before Kara and I arrived, or after Kara and I arrived?" Clark said carefully.

Martha and Jonathan looked at each other.

"If he saw the ship -- either ship come down..." Martha said.

"Probably wasn't him, he was too out o it," Jonathan scoffed. "Though why he'd believe in aliens from something second-hand..." Jonathan frowned.

"If someone took a picture..." Martha put in.

"--Then we'll need to get Kara out ourselves soon, before anyone else finds her." Jonathan shrugged. "That's nothing new. We're planning on doing that soon, anyway." From the sound of things, from what Clark had related, she'd probably ended up in the river. But _where_ exactly was the question.

"It really didn't occur to you, though? Him knowing?" Martha said with a slight frown.

"I'm a dense, dumb old farmer from the sticks, all right?" Jonathan defended, throwing his hands up.

Martha sighed, shook her head, and gave him a kiss to the temple. "You are not. Silly man," she said, sitting back again. "I suppose it's good you probably acted confused about it, then." She took a sip of tea, then switched gears. "...So what did the Ross boys have to say when you called them?"

Jonathan gave her a blank look.

Martha gave him a sharp one.

"Uh, right," Jonathan said, getting it. "Well, it's a little late to call them tonight..."

Martha shook her head and blew out an exasperated sigh.

"What'd you spend the rest of the day doing, then?" she asked, and Jonathan glanced over at Clark.

"Mostly talking about Kara, actually," Jonathan said. "We're still not sure how to get her out. We'll need to figure out what's going on with her ship, and exactly where it is and what shape it's in, first." They hadn't gone looking yet because someone had needed to stay with the farm, Martha had been coming home soon, and none of them had had dinner, yet.

Clark nodded.

"Hm, in the water, right?" said Martha, thinking.

"Yes," said Clark.

Jonathan knew better than to poke Martha when she was that thoughtful. "Clark, do you have any questions about what I just talked about?" he asked.

Clark nodded.

Jonathan waited. Patiently.

Finally, Clark said, "What is pedophelia?"

Jonathan winced. "Well..." he coughed, and, feeling squeamish, said, "what do you know about it? Anything?"

"'Pedophelia' is 'sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object'," Clark said. "It is also a medical diagnosis: 'a psychiatric disorder in persons sixteen years of age or older typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children'. Children are considered prepubescent if they are eleven to thirteen years of age or younger."

Jonathan's jaw nearly hit the floor. Martha almost choked on her tea.

"I don't understand," Clark repeated, and, suddenly, 'not understanding' began to have a very different meaning for Jonathan Kent.

'It's like he has an encyclopedia in his head, but he doesn't understand the meaning...' Jonathan thought weakly, then shied away from the thought. _No-one_ should understand pedophelia.

Certainly not a nine-year-old boy. Not like _that_.

"Clark..." Jonathan thought frantically. "Uh, there are... certain places that an adult should not touch a child, because they are... uncomfortable... for the child..." oh god, and he was probably going to have to explain holding hands when crossing the street next, and not taking candy from strangers.

Or getting into people's cars, even if they were friendly, even if he knew them...

"Oh. 'Good touch' and 'bad touch'," Clark said, but he was frowning.

"You know about that?" Jonathan said, blinking. He would have thought that a bit... of a human way of explaining things. In English. And in the U.S. specifically.

But Clark nodded. "BrainIAC attempted to explain. There are dolls?" he said. "It was confusing."

He glanced over at Martha, but Martha was giving him a look that said clearly, 'You started this, dig yourself out of this one.'

"Right..." Jonathan said weakly. Then he swallowed hard and manned up. He could do this. He could explain sex to a... nine-year-old... alien boy. Right.

"Adults should have sex. --Can. Can have sex. If they want to. Both partners. If both partners want to," he corrected himself multiple times, and oh god, he was terrible at this. He took another deep breath. "Children should never have sex."

Clark thought about this for awhile.

"Okay," Clark said.

Well, Clark wasn't frowning but... yeah, he just had to push his luck. "Clark, do you understand why children should never have sex?"

"Yes," Clark said. "Children have not developed to full sexual maturity. They cannot enjoy sex, or use it for procreation of the species. Sexual acts performed upon them may hurt them."

"Will hurt them," Martha murmured.

"But I still do not understand," Clark said.

"Clark," Martha said. "You said you didn't know what pedophelia is, but you seemed to know the definition."

"Yes."

"So why did you say, 'what is pedophelia'?"

"I was requesting more information," Clark said.

Jonathan took in a breath. "There's a difference between saying you don't understand what a word means, and saying you don't understand the concept, Clark."

"But when I am talking with a person, does it not mean both?" Clark said, sounding confused.

"Who do you talk with, besides people, Clark?" Martha asked, confused herself.

"BrainIAC," Clark told them.

"And he-- it-- this AI-computer thing of yours--" Jonathan began.

"He," Clark corrected.

"He couldn't explain it to you."

"No," Clark told Jonathan.

"Who do you usually go to, when BrainIAC can't explain something to you?" Martha asked suddenly.

"Lara, or Kara," Clark said.

"Who is Lara?" Martha asked.

"My mother."

Jonathan stifled a wince, more from the _lack_ of emotional response from Kal than the presence of it.

"Right, ok," Jonathan said, figuring that a topic change was in order, as fast as he could wrap this up and make it. "Pedophelia is a bad thing. It is a criminal thing. Wrong. Adults should not do it. Responsible adults never do it."

"An adult who does it is not responsible," Clark commented, picking up the thread.

"Yes," Jonathan said. "It's not really something that is meant to be... understood by good people. The people who do it are... sick. There is something very wrong with them."

"And then they go to a hospital and are made better?" Clark asked.

Jonathan and Martha both winced and exchanged a glance.

"No, son," Jonathan said sadly. "Pedophelia is... a mental disease. We can't... really cure mental diseases. Usually we just lock those people away so they can't hurt other people anymore."

Clark stared at them for a moment, then sighed.

"Like the Phantom Zone," he said, and they both sat up in alarm.

"I thought you said your father's assistant Raya was there!" Martha exclaimed. Jonathan was just as shocked -- he hadn't even considered that Kal's family might have been on the wrong side of the war, even with the whole 'his father told him to take over the planet' thing! Had this Zod been in the right, trying to take down a corrupt government that Kal's father had been enforcing with an iron fist?!

"She is there," Clark said, frowning at their reactions, then he blinked and looked shocked himself. "Raya is not a criminal! Jor sent her there because there was only the one ship. She had no other way off-planet and..." Clark frowned. "And the Zone is dangerous. Dangerous criminals live there." His frown deepened.

"She's... probably all right," Martha said slowly. "Your father sounds like a smart, capable man. He probably planned for that and... made sure she'd be all right there."

Clark frowned, but said nothing.

Something occurred to Jonathan. "Kal, is it possible that your parents might be in the Zone?" he asked.

"What?" Kal said, startled. "I--"

He looked hopeful for about all of two seconds, before it all came crashing down. It was painful to watch.

"No," Clark said morosely. "They were probably--" then he grimaced, looked horrified and guilty, then just resigned.

"Clark?" Martha asked gently.

"The broken-BrainIAC probably would have killed them anyway," Clark said. "There would not have been enough time for them to get to and work a nearby Zone generator so that they could have make their escape, even if my spacecraft had been launched a little earlier. After Raya left... I do not know where it went." He looked up. "We used to have one, in father's work rooms. I think they may have taken it, after Raya..."

"Broken BrainIAC?" Jonathan echoed.

"Who is 'they', Clark?" Martha asked.

And with that, Clark launched into an explanation of the two sides of the war -- The Ruling Council with Jor-El against Zod and the military caste -- and the hidden third side -- Zor-El -- and the secret war -- to stop the mining of the planet -- what BrainIAC was really supposed to be for -- not just his ship's AI -- and the final days of Krypton, ending with his launch from the planet.

Then he stopped himself abruptly and started over 'at the beginning' with a covert military group led by Zod, a group of terrorists called Black Zero, the complete obliteration of a city called Kandor, and the death of Zod's son. That explanation was jumbled and a bit confused, and Kal readily admitted that he hadn't understood it when Jor had explained it to him.

It all sounded like something out of a science fiction novel, and it made Jonathan's head spin that these things had _actually happened_ \-- there had been a huge, all-encompassing war on another planet because three people had hated each other, and now fourteen trillion people were dead. It seemed so... unreal. Jonathan just couldn't process it properly.

They sat in silence as they digested this for a bit, until Martha said, "Clark, you said that Kara was Zor-El's daughter, right?"

"Yes," said Clark. Then he blinked and frowned.

"Oh," Clark said quietly. "That was why she was able to go to school. Zor knew Zod wouldn't hurt her, because Zor was working for him." Clark looked _angry_ ...or cheated. Small wonder, if he'd really been stuck and home like that, while his uncle had been safe and secure... and working against them in secrecy.

"When did Kara find out?" Martha asked.

"A little before the destruction," Clark said. "At least, I think so. --No, it _was_." he said firmly. "I don't think she would have kept that from anyone," Clark said.

"How do you know that she knew?" Jonathan asked.

"Because she _hated_ the war -- I know she did -- and she told us my mother that Zor had been working with Zod when she called to tell us about what he was doing with the mine," Clark said. "I think Kandor was the worst one? ...Father didn't really ever explain. There wasn't time. But I don't think anyone knew for certain until she told us." Clark frowned. "Except that the Council said to close all the portals so that Zor couldn't escape, I think, and that was a week or so before." His frown deepened. "But my mother seemed surprised when Kara told her, and father and mother didn't keep secrets from each other about the war."

"Clark, what exactly did your parents tell you?" Martha asked, trying to inject some sense into the conversation.

...Ah. Clark looked guilty.

"I... might have overheard some things when I was... waiting to see them?" Clark said hopefully, then looked abashed and defensive. "I hardly ever got to see them both! I was just waiting. I never told anyone else! They were secrets -- family secrets! I promised not to repeat them to anyone not family and everything!"

Hoo boy. Second-hand information from a nine-year-old. No wonder a lot of it sounded confused.

"Family secrets?" Martha said, and Clark colored.

"You said I'm family," he said even more defensively, hunching his shoulders.

...Jonathan would take what he could get. He jumped. "That's right, Clark, you are." Clark immediately brightened. "Family isn't always blood," Jonathan continued, trying not to hate himself too much as Clark was looking at him like he was just about hanging on every word. "Family is sometimes the people you choose, who are even closer than blood." 'Who maybe might be able to stop you from going and trying to do something stupid like world-domination, because you'll feel like you'll actually have to listen to them.'

"Like J'onn," Clark said, and Jonathan gave a mental sigh of relief, bordering on shame.

"Yes, exactly," he agreed.

"J'onn is welcome here too?" Clark asked tentatively.

"Of course. We'll find a way to make him feel welcome," Martha said warmly, as Jonathan wondered how in the heck they were going to disguise an honest-to-god Martian. It'd probably be too much to ask that he look as human as Clark, too.

...Oh, hell. He hoped Kara looked as human as Clark. They'd have a hell of a time finding a way to have her fit in, otherwise.

Then something a little scary occurred to Jonathan.

"Clark..."

"Yes?"

"You said that Jor-El was the Ruling Council's choice to fight against Zod, right?"

"Yes."

"Why did they pick him, if they didn't know about Zor-El defecting?" Jonathan asked. Then he frowned. "Was it because Jor-El knew Dru-Zod?"

"Knew him?" Clark echoed, frowning. "I... don't know. Maybe?" He seemed to think about it. "Zod was a military genius, but Jor was a genius at science, not war." He frowned again. "I... thought that they picked him because he was the best, most intelligent person on the Ruling Council...?" But it was obvious that Clark wasn't sure that that had been the reason anymore.

Martha glanced at Jonathan, then blinked and started to pick up on the idea that Jonathan had. "Your father was a member of this Ruling Council?"

Clark nodded.

"How many people were on it? And what did they usually do?" Martha asked.

The next thing Jonathan knew, they were being treated to an explanation of the Kryptonian caste structure -- science, military, art, and religious guilds -- an in-depth explanation of the various Councils for each Guild, and a _very_ in-depth explanation of the Ruling Council and its members and factions. The former Clark talked about like he'd read about it in history books, but the latter...?

Well, hell. He hadn't picked up just some run-of-the-mill alien boy, now had he? Oh, no. _He'd_ managed to pick up some sort of super-intelligent alien princeling, the son of two extremely intelligent parents who were so far up the political structure, they _were_ the peak!

...And while Kal's father had been in favor, from the sound of things, Kara's father Zor had fallen into _dis_ favor -- if a confused 'he was almost as smart as Jor and did a lot of important science, and they used to fight a lot, but then Zor ended up running Kandor's mine and didn't do as much groundbreaking scientific work anymore so they didn't fight as much' covered it adequately -- and Zor had been pretty sore about it -- if the way he had defected to Zod was any big damn clue.

So, that would then make Kara an alien princess of-sorts of a ruined house, on top of being a rebellious teenager on the cusp of adulthood, who had just lost her entire planet in a war, which she had just discovered her father had been on the wrong side of, and she had been put in the horrible position of having to turn her own traitorous father over to her relatives herself... --She was going to be a mess coming out.

And if the abilities of a certain nine-year-old were any indication, she'd probably be able to do a lot more than benchpress a truck or two once she woke up.

Oh, hell.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	11. Chapter 11

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Clark, I know you're strong, but... how strong do you think Kara will be, once we've woken her up?" Jonathan asked.

"I am not certain," Clark said. "But under a yellow sun, Kryptonians are very strong, and fast, and... if I was older, I would have very good eyesight and hearing and would even be able to irradiate things with microwave heat from my eyes." Clark paused a moment. "Adult Kryptonians on Earth have almost impervious skin, and some can even fly."

Great. Not a princeling -- a _godling_. "I suppose that's what that 'like a god among men' part meant," Jonathan muttered, running a hand over his face.

"Under a yellow sun?" Martha asked, and Jonathan glanced up at her.

"Yes," said Clark.

"Did your-- Krypton have a yellow sun?"

"No, it was red."

"Do you -- do Kryptonians have abilities like that under a red sun?"

"No."

Huh.

...Wait, no, that was worse. Kara would suddenly have abilities she'd never had before. Kal might seem all right in not using them for now, but if all teenagers were equal...

Hell, when he'd gotten his first car at sixteen -- built it himself, the only way he could have had one of his own at the time -- he'd gone racing in it first-thing, pushing all the limits he could. Nearly wrapped himself around a tree, and had laughed himself sick about it at the time. What the hell would an alien girl do who had effectively no limits, no parental supervision, and nobody who could tell her 'no' and make it stick?

"Kal," Jonathan said quietly, "do you think your cousin will be all right with just fitting in and not using her powers around humans?" 'Do you think she will behave?'

Clark blinked at him. "She..." He frowned.

He didn't say anything else.

That was more telling than if he had said anything.

"Clark, are you allergic to anything?" Martha asked suddenly, and Jonathan felt a little like he'd been slapped upside the head, because what the hell?

Clark looked up at her in confusion.

"Well, I've made normal-- ah, _human_ food for you so far and not thought anything of it, but I don't want you getting sick," Martha said, standing and heading for the kitchen.

Clark frowned a little, but stood to follow. "I don't believe that there is any Earth food that would cause me difficulty," he said. "BrainIAC said there was not."

"Is there anything else you might be allergic to, though?" Martha asked. "Some people are allergic to certain metals; some people can break out in skin rashes if they come into contact with silver, for instance, and some people can go into anaphylactic shock if they accidently ingest certain things."

Jonathan started to get the idea about the same time Clark seemed to.

"...Why do you want to know?" Clark said slowly.

"--You don't have to tell us, Kal -- Clark!" Jonathan said hurriedly. He didn't want Clark to accidentally take it the wrong way. Martha couldn't have meant it the way it had sounded. "We're just asking if there is something. If you can think of something that might make a Kryptonian sick. If _you_ know of something that could do that. Because..." he sighed, and rubbed his neck.

Clark turned to look at him, face almost expressionless, guarded in a way he hadn't been before.

'Ah, hell,' Jonathan thought. "Look, if it's just you and Kara, and she's ten years older than you... well," he glanced up at Martha to exchange a look with her -- no, she was leaving it to him again, dangit -- then back to Clark. "If your uncle J'onn doesn't show up before she wakes up, she'll have no-one to tell her 'no'."

"I can," Clark said, frowning at him.

"Not and make it stick," Jonathan told him seriously. "She's bigger than you, yes?" Clark nodded. "And she'll come out stronger than you, or she will be after a little time under our sun, right?" Clark nodded again. "She won't have to listen to you, Clark. If she decides to do something you don't agree with, would you physically be able to stop her from doing it?" Jonathan said, really knowing the answer already.

Clark frowned at him, and then he looked down. His frown got deeper, and deeper. Jonathan wondered if he was coming to the same conclusion that they had: Clark would need something to give him some sort of an advantage, unfair or otherwise, if worst came to worst and he needed to try and stop her, somehow. Jonthan wouldn’t expect this smart little alien boy to tell them what, if anything, could hurt his cousin -- or _him_ by extension -- because that would require a level of trust that, frankly, he and Martha just didn’t deserve; they hadn’t earned that trust, yet. And, not knowing what could be done, what they might need to do, they wouldn’t be able to do it for him. But if Clark _couldn’t_ think of anything that could stop her...

"We won't be able to," Jonathan said. "If you can't, it might be that no-one on Earth can. That's... worrying, to us. Especially after hearing that her father was on the wrong side of that war. --You understand?" Jonathan said, as gently as he could.

"Kara is not a traitor," Clark said, looking up at him with an angry glint in his eye.

"I didn't say she was," Jonathan said. "But not a whole lot of people are good enough to act civilly and still follow the rules when there's nobody around to enforce them. Who _can_ enforce them," Jonathan told him. "And even if she's content to still follow your rules -- Kryptonian rules -- well, human rules -- our rules -- are going to be different." 'We barely convinced you to go along with hiding for now, pretending to be human. Who knows what she'll want to do, or what ideas of her own she'll have, coming out of there.' "I don't know her. I don't know what she'll do."

"I do," Clark said calmly.

"Maybe. But she might just as easily change her mind from one day to the next. You can't vouch for her," Jonathan told him with a sigh. "Clark, you can't claim responsibility for her actions -- you can't claim responsibility for _her_ \-- if you can't help her when she needs helping, and sometimes that means stopping a body when they're dead-set on doing something that'll harm themselves or others, or maybe both," Jonathan told him. "If you can't stop them, you don't really have any control or real authority over what they do or don't do, any more than you would if you couldn't help them either."

Clark looked uncomfortable and belligerent. "By your own argument, you cannot claim responsibility for me, then," he told them. "You cannot stop me, either."

"You _let_ us stop you," Jonathan said. "I know I can talk to you; you're rational, more rational than more human adults," he admitted with a wry smile. "We can talk things through and come to a compromise," he said. What they'd discussed that afternoon about Kara's spaceship retrieval had been proof enough of that.

"Kara is rational," Clark said, his chin ticking upward in something like pride. "She does what is right, even when it is difficult."

'And when it isn't difficult?' Jonathan wondered, then shook his head. "Clark," he said sadly, "What makes you think she'll be all that rational coming out of that thing?"

Clark's eyes went wide. "Her spaceship was not damaged to such an extent!" he blurted out. "BrainIAC helped me check! She is--"

Jonathan winced, then got up off the couch and crouched down in front of Clark's chair. He hadn't meant to scare the boy. "I'm sure she's fine, physically," he told Clark, putting a comforting hand on his knee, as Martha puttered about the kitchen. At least, he hoped it was comforting. Clark did seem to calm down somewhat after he did it. "What I mean is that she... well," he glanced over at Martha again, who gave him a 'keep going' look over her shoulder. "She was more... outgoing than you, right?"

"Yes," Clark said, though from his frown he didn't seem to get what Jonathan was trying to allude to.

'Going to have to spell it out outright, then,' Jonathan thought sadly. "She wasn't homeschooled like you were. She got to go outside, got to meet more people. Probably a lot more people," he told Clark. "How many people do you think she knew, had met, were friends with -- were people she cared about?"

Clark tilted his head at him. "I don't know."

"But she went to school, yes? She got to go outside on her own?" 

Clark nodded curtly.

"And she got along with people? Did she make friends easily?"

"I... would have to ask BrainIAC," Clark offered with some reserve. "He would know."

"All right," Jonathan said. "But it'd be... a lot more than six people that she had to care about, I'd assume?"

Clark nodded.

"Right," Jonathan said. "The people you cared about that made it off of Krypton were J'onn, BrainIAC, Raya, and Kara. How many of them is Kara also close to?"

Clark frowned slightly. "Kara... doesn't know Raya very well. And J'onn didn't like Zor-El. So Kara didn't like him, and I don't think he liked her much either. And..." Clark bit his lip slightly. "Kara doesn't think of BrainIAC like a person like I do," he said, as if admitting a guilty secret.

Jonathan heard Martha's intake of breath. He seconded the feeling -- his gut just about dropped to his knees. As if they didn't have enough problems looming on the horizon already. "So..." he grimaced. "Your mother and father... and Kara's father and mother..."

"Kara's mother died many years ago," Clark corrected him.

The continued lack of emotional response when referring to Kal's dead family made Jonathan feel a little sick. He'd feel better if the little alien boy would cry about it the same way he had in the car when Martha had first startled him, patting him on the head. The boy would likely feel better afterwards, too. The fact that he seemed unable -- or unwilling -- to mourn them was...

"Well," Jonathan cleared his throat, which was feeling a little clogged at the moment. "Kara's lost all the family she cared about, except you," he pointed out. "And no-one else that you know to have survived..." Jonathan paused. 'Actually...' He hadn't exactly asked outright before, so maybe he'd misunderstood when Kal had said that there wasn't anyone else he was trying to get in contact with. Maybe Kal just hadn't expected anyone else he knew to come down _here_. "How many others made it out alive? Maybe to other planets than this one?" Jonathan asked him, with a glimmer of hope.

"No-one," Clark said.

He heard a sharp clatter in the kitchen, as Martha dropped something to the countertop, and a heavy silence fell over the house for a moment.

"...No-one?" Jonathan asked, hearing the strain in his own voice. "You're sure?"

"Yes," said Clark. "I had BrainIAC scan for others. The sole manned spacecraft launched from the planet before Krypton, and then the sun, exploded were my spaceship, and Kara's. And the Ruling Council closed all of the portals off-planet weeks before; no-one would have been able to escape the destruction through them."

"What about the people already off-planet before that?" Jonathan asked, as it finally began to sink in, exactly how dire the situation was.

"No Kryptonians were off-planet then, except those sentenced to the Phantom Zone," Clark told them. "Everyone was recalled back when the war began."

'Dear god in heaven,' Jonathan thought. He'd really, truly hoped that he'd misunderstood earlier. Fourteen trillion dead. And not only that -- an _entire_ alien species of people had been wiped out, just like that. All of them. Except for...

With a heavy heart, Jonathan said, "Clark..." He grimaced. "I'm sorry, son, I don't know how else to put this," he told him. "You're happy that Kara, J'onn, Raya, and BrainIAC survived, aren't you?"

"Yes," Clark breathed out, straightening in place and looking more than a little relieved.

"And... it hurts that your mother and father didn't."

"...Yes," Clark said quietly, without losing the least bit of composure, not showing a smidgen of emotion. His eyes flickered slightly, in nothing more than what looked like a stuttered blink. That was it.

"And knowing that your cousin, and your other friends survived..." Jonathan took in a breath. "It doesn't make losing your parents hurt any less, does it?" Jonathan asked him somberly.

A flash of emotion flickered across Clark's face for a moment, only a moment. He dropped his head and looked down at his hands, as if thinking about it. As if he had to think about it; Jonathan knew better. Any human would.

"No..." said Clark. He took in a breath. "No, it does not make it hurt any less," he repeated with a little more strength, a slight wavering in his tone, as he raised his eyes back up to meet Jonathan's own. "Why are you asking--"

"Because it's important that you understand what Kara's going to be feeling, coming out of that ship," Jonathan told him, with a voice full of gravel. Because, if nothing else, it was becoming pretty clear to even this dense old farmer that Kryptonians did _not_ know how to deal with their emotions well, let alone strong ones.

If the only way these supposedly-advanced aliens knew how to handle their feelings was to try and bury them under 'proper composure' or express them through rage... god, that'd explain that Zod character losing his mind over the death of his wife and son, wouldn't it? It'd explain Zor-El's decades-old grudge. The only thing it wouldn't explain, really, was how the species had managed to survive for so long in the first place.

Kal was nine. He barely had a handle on his own emotional state. So Jonathan rightly doubted he'd even had the chance to spend much time trying to understand what lay under the emotionless exterior surface of others of his own race -- especially with little-to-no contact with anyone outside his immediate family members to interact with, as a literal homeschooled shut-in.

"Kara will have you," Jonathan told Clark, hating himself for having to force this knowledge, this kind of awareness so soon, onto an already almost-certainly traumatized nine year old boy. "Kara will have you _and no-one else_ , Kal. Do you understand?" he told him, reaching up to hold that nine-year-old boy's hands in his. "As much as I'm sure she loves you and cares about you, as you love and care about her," Jonathan told him, "that won't make it hurt any less for her, for her to wake up and have everyone else she loves and cares about gone."

"Jonathan..." he heard Martha say quietly, but he looked over at her and shook his head. He had to get through this. He looked back at the young, orphaned boy in front of him.

"Kal, as much as it hurts you to lose the two people closest to you, she will be feeling that same horrible painful feeling for many, many more people, many times over. That feeling will be magnified for her, for as many people that she misses, for all the people that she's lost, and..." it damn near broke Jonathan's heart to see the look on Clark's face, that crumpling of his emotionless facade, as Clark felt _empathy_ \-- a very real, very _human_ empathy -- for his cousin, as it began to dawn on him. As he began to understand, as his eyes widened and silent tears ran down his cheeks as he stared at Jonathan in horror.

Jonathan picked him up off of his chair and folded him into a hug. Clark sank into his arms and returned it, grabbed onto him like his life just about depended on it.

Jonathan held that poor lost little boy as his shirt became damp with tears, as he felt that boy begin to shake with the stifled sobs he was trying not to make as he clung to him.

He heard Martha's footsteps as she hurried over, and she sank down next to him and wrapped her arms around the both of them. She looked down at Clark, and then up at Jonathan, and she had tears in her eyes. She held them as if she wished she could shelter Clark from everything, but she knew, just as Jonathan knew, that she couldn't.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
